I was really, really into indie pop for a while. Indie pop? You’ve never heard of it? Well, the term sounds simple enough. Independent pop music. But for those in the know the term “indie pop” means so much more than that. It is an insulated genre consisting of a few integral elements: jangly guitars, punk rock drumming, and excessively innocent, even naïve lyrics. It was a rebellion against typical rock music egos. Indie pop bands simultaneously flaunted their (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) sensitivities and ridiculed punk machismo. It came out of dancey post-punk music from the early ‘80s played by bands like Aztec Camera and Orange Juice and evolved into a close-knit hipster music scene. Labels like Sarah Records and bands like Another Sunny Day, The Shop Assistants, and the Field Mice came to lead the scene. It peaked and petered out mostly during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and remained confined mostly to the UK. Luckily for us latter day music nerds though, there are still a few hangers-on as well as an entirely new generation of indie poppers.

Why do I mention all of this? Some blog called Chocolate Bobka posted a copy of the C86 tape. C86 was a compilation tape put out by the magazine New Musical Express (NME) in 1986. It came to define the indie pop movement and make it widely known to the public; it was even used for a while as a synonym for indie pop in general. It was a big deal. Of course, by now it is obscure enough that music bloggers can get away with putting it up for free on the internet with no repercussions, but some people still look back on it fondly.

There is a lot to be said about indie pop and I won’t bother to say it all here. Being so deliberately vulnerable, it can be easy to make fun of and criticize. There were a few indie pop bands that sounded generic or amateur. But I will assert that indie pop simply sounds good. It is romantic, it is sentimental, and it takes all of the sounds we loved from 40 and 50 years ago alongside the punk aesthetics of the ‘80s.

You should hear it.

Here’s the tape: http://chocolatebobka.blogspot.com/2009/03/old-c86-mix-tape.html.

Here’s one of my favorite classic indie pop music videos:



And here are a few of my favorite modern indie pop bands:

- Math and Physics Club
- Belle and Sebastian
- The Lucksmiths
- Camera Obscura

Ciao Ciao.