How to Identify Indie Music Artists

Indie music is a popular genre of music that transcends different musical styles. Find indie music in rock, pop, electronic, jazz, folk and instrumental styles. Instead of one particular style, indie music describes independent music published and recorded away from the major record labels.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Recognize that indie music artists may have a do-it-yourself mentality about making music. Indie artists may be involved in all facets of the music biz, including producing and promoting. Primarily, they remain in control of their own music.

2. Take note of a certain roughness to indie recordings, called "lo-fi" as opposed to the slick, hi-fi sounds of commercial recordings.

3. Identify the record label for a music CD. If it's a recognizable recording house, then it's probably not indie music. If you haven't heard of it, you may have found an indie artist.

4. Find indie music through digital distribution like Podcasts instead of the traditional way of releasing CDs on a label.

5. Look for radio stations that support indie music. A good indication of an indie-friendly radio station is frequently introducing new artists.

6. Listen to indie artists who play concerts in small venues where the distance between the musicians and the fans is quite small. Indie music embraces a "we're all in this together" attitude.

7. Check for indie music artists at networking sites like MySpace. Digital music software makes it possible to post videos of indie musicians on You Tube or band websites. You might even find musicians who write a music blog.

Tips & Warnings

• People also use indie to describe styles and subculture surrounding independent music.
• Sometimes independent labels have a contract with major labels for distribution.

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on 9/17/2009 How is this useful?