When did indie begin? When Stiff Records released its first single, produced and distributed independently of the major labels in 1976? When certain key 60s bands – the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the Byrds – made recordings that continue to cast a deep and long shadow over the sounds we perceive as indie? Or before that, even? After all, many of the great labels of the rock'n'roll era were independent in the sense that the revolutionaries of the late-70s employed – they did it themselves, from start to finish.
Even though indie has become codified in the public mind to mean young, white men playing guitar music, maybe we should remind ourselves of what it once stood for: a defiantly oppositional stance to prevailing trends in popular culture. Indie could be difficult and challenging; it did not shy away from politics (the assertion of independence was itself a political statement); it was not for all, but for those who chose to be indie, it was a way of life, of self-definition.
We've tried to trace a version of indie's history – starting with Roger McGuinn's chiming Rickenbacker on Mr Tambourine Man – from its origins, through its development following punk, and on to its current status as the blogger's choice of the day. Along the way, lots of great stuff has been left out. There's no room for a load of my personal favourites, from the Replacements mixing old-fashioned rock'n'roll with the indie underground to the Sugarcubes making a new and unearthly sound (probably wrongly, I decided Björk had become a phenomenon that transcended indie). Let us know what else we've got completely and utterly wrong.
