What do you mean by “indie”?
I was thinking, this morning, about how different “classic rock” is from the stuff that seems to pass for rock expression these days. Where you used to have kids listening to bands like Aerosmith and Thin Lizzy and thinking about how cool it was going to be when one was grown up and driving a muscle car out of dead end town (and I’m basing most of this statement on Dazed and Confused), nowadays, it seems a lot of what passes for “rock” doesn’t really rock anymore. I’m talking about those generic “punk” bands that sing about girls breaking up with them and stuff, as though the territory of “sex, drugs, and rock & roll!” has collapsed into “high school forever!” What I guess I’m saying is that there used to be rock music for adults. Or, at least, about adults. Or kids grappling with being adults (which is why “Born To Run” is probably the greatest rock album of all time).
Anyway, this whole debate was prompted by the new album by the Hold Steady, The Boys and Girls In America. The Hold Steady tells stories about losers and drop-outs and druggies amongst suburban wastelands and the bored professionals of the urban core. While it may not be about muscle cars, its definitely about sex and drugs. It feels grown up. Not so much “I’m so sad that you’re gone and I wish you would look at me” (the position articulated by pop-emo) as “You know what, you were a mess and I’m sort of glad that you’re gone.” It’s an album of stories that are thematically unified without being the same thing over and over. Further, it pays musically homage to a range of influences that include perpetually uncool bands such as Thin Lizzy, Bruce Springsteen, and Journey. That isn’t to say that any of those bands are uncool (although, were it not for “Don’t Stop Believing,” Journey would be 100% cheesey), but in an indie culture that seems to suggest that a response to Belle & Sebastian is the only way to “rock” (Hell, even Belle & Sebastian is responding to Belle & Sebastian these days) and a mainstream that inscribes an adolescent perspective as the way to rock, it’s unusual to see the Hold Steady do something that is different (although, not completely: the Hold Steady come off as a less DIY Ted Leo)by articulating a classic rock sound that sings about the condition of adults today.
