The End of Indie Rock

Today, while hopefully scouring the news at pitchfork for an upcoming Les Savy Fav tour outside the realm of NYC, I came across this unsettling picture.

No, this is not photoshopped. This is an actual cd that is being released in the United States by those people who release "Now That's What I Call Music". I know that I should be glad that the release of the first, of what will likely be many, cd's of this nature will bring good music to the ears of those who've been stuck in Dave Matthews Band Land for too long, but I am not.

I know this shouldn't come as a suprise to me. Indie Rock is everywhere in mainstream culture now. Many more indie bands are signing to major labels, and putting out some of their best albums so far (most notably Sleater-Kinney and Modest Mouse). Their songs have been selling everything from minivans, to VW's, to phones.

I think what makes me sad/angry is that now indie rock will just be another buzz word for the music industry, whereas it used to be basically underground and not talked about in Rolling Stone except for in the tiny margin stories.Here's a quote from the marketers of this cd:

"We're partnering with MTV2, and the focus is going to be Wal-Marts, big box stores, red states, and TV advertising-- to really go beyond... We don't really expect indie rock stores to support this record. It's for the casual fan."

This quote is also bothersome. They're not going to release it in indie stores. YOU KNOW WHY? Because people who shop at indie stores already HAVE all of these albums and have been listening to these bands for years.

So, now, we'll be fighting all these assholes at shows who have only heard one song off of this compliation and drunkenly scream for that one song at shows. It will not be good. Maybe it's a good thing that I bought a house this year and can't afford to go to many concerts afterall.

I guess my hope for this compilation is that there's some kid out there, who's stuck listening to all the stupid pop crap his/her friends are listening to, and mistakenly buys this cd at Target only to discover that there really is REAL HONEST music out there worth spending your parents dollars on. That would make it all alright, I suppose.