A decade or so ago, the alt airwaves we're filled with bands like arcade fire, Mumford and sons, Tegan and Sara, gotten, and more. Now even the Portland alternative station doesn't play them anymore. You'd think this kind of music would resonate with college kids. What happened to this style?
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Indie/hipster music dead?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
College students tend to be interested in the music of their generation. The people who liked this music are now in their 30s.
I don't know if the music is dead, but I know these particular performers have stopped releasing new music. It may be because of covid, it may be because of lack of inspiration, or any number of reasons. But they're now somewhere between active and oldies.
In this area, "hipsters" were a passing fad. They thought they were on the "cutting edge" of most everything, and once something became "mainstream", they were no longer interested in it and you could easily tell which bars were "hipster bars" by the way the clientele were dressed and carried themselves, etc. Here, at least, they were a big driver of things like the micro and craft beer scenes. That was also when the guys had mustaches and beards and dressed like lumberjacks in their flannel shirts and rough looking jeans, but in actuality they couldn't do so much as change a tire or make even simple home repairs. At times it was almost a bit laughable to the point where I saw one group of people doing a themed pub crawl, but rather than dressing like Santa or in 70s or 80s attire, the entire group was crawling from one bar to the other, dressed like hipsters.
I don't think the hipsters were a "passing fad" so much as when the economy took its dump last year, they all lost their jobs and found out the hard way, through their lack of critical thinking skills and work ethic, how truly useless their Reed/PSU/other liberal arts degrees were. Then once what of their parents' trust funds didn't get blown on craft booze and "the scene" finally ran out and they could no longer afford their $1900/month lofts in "the Pearl" they all moved into tents, shantytowns and '80s Winnebagos on Marine Drive, Delta Park, Sandy and downtown (slowly creeping towards Gresham and Troutdale, even though their mayors have all said "GTFO and go back to Potland"), got stoned and started dumping their rubbish and H needles everywhere.
So the hipsters are still there, they've just ironically de/evolved into a different type of vermin. The music is still there (admittedly, I do actualy enjoy a little bit of it, particularly what they used to play on Foreground years ago.... the Shins still do, and always will, suck) but like the hipsters themselves, it never made anything of itself, nor attempted to live up to its potential (what little there was, anyways) and is stuck with three wheels in the ditch and one on the track. And that ain't deck.
Pshaw! Whatever.
Source: direct observation from the battle front.
So the hipsters are still there, they've just ironically de/evolved into a different type of vermin. The music is still there (admittedly, I do actualy enjoy a little bit of it, particularly what they used to play on Foreground years ago.... the Shins still do, and always will, suck) but like the hipsters themselves, it never made anything of itself, nor attempted to live up to its potential (what little there was, anyways) and is stuck with three wheels in the ditch and one on the track. And that ain't deck.
Pshaw! Whatever.
Source: direct observation from the battle front.
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It’s pretty clear that the sound has faded a lot as alternative stations are increasing the amount of alternative rock and pop-punk currents on the airwaves. If you go back you notice that indie was starting to fade as far back as 2017, though. Originally the format tried to replace the indie music with alternative pop; but as that seems to not be working they’re going back to basics.
It’s quite possible that the realities of adulthood hit the hipsters hard, as did the pandemic, but I think it’s simply a matter of hipsters just lacking buying power, especially now. Hipster-aimed products are failing in many mediums, not just radio and music. The trend is shifting back closer to what we had in the 90’s and 00’s in terms of what’s cool and interesting.
The Lumineers, a key hipster band, recently released a lead single that is closer to Kings of Leon and Cage the Elephant than the hipster-friendly folk they made their names on. If that doesn’t tell you what’s going on with indie and hipster stuff I don’t know what will.
It’s quite possible that the realities of adulthood hit the hipsters hard, as did the pandemic, but I think it’s simply a matter of hipsters just lacking buying power, especially now. Hipster-aimed products are failing in many mediums, not just radio and music. The trend is shifting back closer to what we had in the 90’s and 00’s in terms of what’s cool and interesting.
The Lumineers, a key hipster band, recently released a lead single that is closer to Kings of Leon and Cage the Elephant than the hipster-friendly folk they made their names on. If that doesn’t tell you what’s going on with indie and hipster stuff I don’t know what will.
I think the "AC Variety" station I'm on in Wyoming has a Mumford and Sons song we play occasionally.
There was a guy who did a song a few years ago about millenials and hipsters that was pretty spot on in places. He described one sitting in a coffee place after having spent $7.00 on her latte with a double pump of this, hot, but not too hot, with a spritz of this and a whole bunch of other jargon that only those kinds of coffee shops and their patrons care to understand, while telling everyone how she expected to be a millionaire one day soon, while trying to amaze them with her nearly unending knowledge of essential oils.
The site pitchfork probably helped drive the stake through the heart of indie music and making it's death faster. I think they alienated a lot of people with their elitist attitude towards music and eventually the tide turned not in their favor. They were forced to reverse course and write positively about pop and pop-punk.
I'm almost afraid to post this here, since some consider people like me vermin with a lack of critical thinking skills, but I identify as "hipster".
I don't and have never listened to any of the artists mentioned in this thread, or any artists that sound like them. I don't listen to commercial alternative radio or playlists. The same with people in my social circle.
The social circle I know consists of people who are enthusiastic about the local and independent music scenes. There's no lumberjack uniform, and no trust funds. We took on the "hipster" title, because that's what people would label us-- meaning anyone that looks different. Took the label and ran with it.
Any one of us (in my social circle) would prefer later releases from Carly Rae Jepsen or Icona Pop over any of the artists mentioned above.
I don't and have never listened to any of the artists mentioned in this thread, or any artists that sound like them. I don't listen to commercial alternative radio or playlists. The same with people in my social circle.
The social circle I know consists of people who are enthusiastic about the local and independent music scenes. There's no lumberjack uniform, and no trust funds. We took on the "hipster" title, because that's what people would label us-- meaning anyone that looks different. Took the label and ran with it.
Any one of us (in my social circle) would prefer later releases from Carly Rae Jepsen or Icona Pop over any of the artists mentioned above.
Welllll....those two artists did immerse themselves in the hipster circle with their later releases, that didn't get any airtime. The same goes with Charlie XCX.
Maybe we indirectly answered the original question, by accident.
I don't know if indie/ hipster music is dead but in this decade the music labels and concert promoters have to figure a way to find trends that resonates with GenZ demo once vaccination rates are up.
I do love Boom Clap, the "AC Variety" station I VT for plays it now and again and i play it once in a blue moon on our public stations during the afternoon show
True hipsters never listened to commercial radio in the first place. If they listened to the radio at all instead of their iPods and smartphones, it was to the college stations and NPR.
The height of the hipster fad was 2010-2015. It ended when Trump's win made them all turn emo and goth.
The height of the hipster fad was 2010-2015. It ended when Trump's win made them all turn emo and goth.
L.O.L.! Best comment of the thread!
So they regressed, in other words. Remember that the late 2000s/2010s hipsters evolved out of the early 2000s/late 1990s emo/goth teens.
Don't really know about Seattle hipsters so I can't comment on them (at least not directly); my comment primarily dealt with Portland hipsters since they're the species I'm able to most easily observe more-or-less directly, and where lumberjack outfits, fixies and trust funds are still a thing. Remember that Methtown is kind of an anomaly and lags about 20 years behind Seattle (Woody Guthrie even said so in the 1930s!) and the rest of the union, so contrary of kevtronics' comment and most of this thread, they'll probably still be a demographic there until at least 2040.
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Emo/goth teens dang this demo is approaching mid-30's- early 40 years old now. Basically people born from 1980-1986.
20 years ago a lot of them were still teenagers. Ask me how I know this.
I wasn't the stereotypically D-bag bad-poetry-lover/always-depressed/slouchy/wrist-cutter emo-tard. Those guys never really did anything for me. The ones at my school were a bunch of losers anyways. I was the stereotypical "dude-wazzup-bro"/sk8r-boi "other" emo but still rocked the bangs, combat boots/Vans high-tops and black nail polish like it was nobody's business if I did (actually still do sometimes, though you'd never get me to admit it in public on a BBS). Shaka!
I wasn't the stereotypically D-bag bad-poetry-lover/always-depressed/slouchy/wrist-cutter emo-tard. Those guys never really did anything for me. The ones at my school were a bunch of losers anyways. I was the stereotypical "dude-wazzup-bro"/sk8r-boi "other" emo but still rocked the bangs, combat boots/Vans high-tops and black nail polish like it was nobody's business if I did (actually still do sometimes, though you'd never get me to admit it in public on a BBS). Shaka!
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Spotify's "Ultimate Indie" playlist has about 2.1 million followers or "likes" while "Indie Pop" has 1.6 mil and "Feel-Good Indie Rock" at 1.5 mil and a few others had over a million followers. So there is still a niche for it and it does appear to do better than other alternative sub-genres. The Indie Folk/Americana playlist "Roots Rising" currently has 1.8 mil. The largest following I could find with the word "alternative" was Alternative R&B (1.1 mil) so maybe it's become an outdated term. The general public mostly associates alternative rock with music of the 1990s and to an extent the 2000s so perhaps commercial stations need to just make this a throwback format like classic hip-hop. It might be an easier sell especially if clustered with a classic rock or classic hits station. Otherwise how do you find enough common ground with all the smaller current sub-genres?
Considering that classic rock KLOS in LA, combining all markets it gets rated in, has over 1.2 million listeners and Alt KYSR has about the same amount in a smaller coverage area, those "indie" figures are very, very small. If you figure that LA has about 3% of the US population but each of the rock stations cumes over 10% of the 6+ people there, a national format would have to have about 60 million followers to be in the same league.
That means that those formats are ideal streaming vehicles, but totally insignificant for radio in any market.
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