Although big labels have long made money by poaching out the sound developed by indie labels, nothing in the history of music parallels the success they enjoyed by swiping the alternative style that developed in the ‘80s and getting it played on the radio. Suddenly, dozens of alternative acts were thrust into the spotlight, and hundreds of more began to imitate the dirty distortion that had up until now been under wraps in the garages of the nation.
Never before has a scene experienced such a bizarre mix of triumph and angst. The very foundations of indie at this time were on the basis of the anti-movement, and with the alternative suddenly becoming the main, thousands of fans lost their identities. This was soon reflected in the artists, as major acts such as Nirvana struggled to come to terms with their new commercial reality.
The indie scene was still around, to be sure, but if one is really honest about the music being churned out, you have to admit that it sucks. After all, when dirty music gets popular, what is the new alternative? Should Bret Michaels and company now be put proudly on display on the shelf as the new Dinosaur Jr? Or, should the indie labels become the last beacon of hope for a breed that for the first time in music was not making any money at all, the pop act?
The answers were not clear for some time, until artists such as Liz Phair and PJ Harvey once again changed the definition of what “indie” truly meant: now, instead of a type of music, indie belonged to the recording style. In this case, that was a style stripped right down, and if your voice or music sounded TOO good, then you had to make your record on the worst equipment possible. While artists such as Sonic Youth continued to put out good music (as did Liz Phair and even PJ Harvey, if we’re being honest) the grunge movement had meant a big change in the indie movement: the music found there was for the first time, actually total crap. There was nothing else to draw from.
Fortunately for the whole scene, artists once considered indie soon found out why the big labels were so detested by genuine acts. Stripped of creativity and forced to work on someone else’s schedule, many of the alternative bands began to try and buck the system. Pearl Jam sued their touring company and refused to bow to the demand for videos; Nirvana made a record so under produced it was mocked. Nevertheless, the major label’s money power would triumph and they were able to still the voices in opposition, one way or another.
Perhaps the fights with artists of integrity opened the eyes of major labels a little bit as to the difficulties in signing real artists, because by the middle of the 1990s pop had once again began to rear its ugly head. The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and N Sync meant that the indie scene could once again be thought of as musically credible, although the big labels had now decided to destroy long time stalwart punk music. Maybe punk was the last surviving genre in indie worth listening to at the time; whatever the reason, it was about to be rudely taken away.
Sarah Records in particular was to make an impact and a statement about the indie scene in the early ‘90s; the label was closed as owners declared that they had achieved their purpose in popularizing their music. Little did they realize that the scene would be revitalized in the near future, when fans began to ask themselves “what the hell is so ‘alternative’ about Oasis?”
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