Have you wondered how some bands manage to release music that sound truer to what they stand for and does not sound like it has been produced to target mass appeal and achieve commercial success? If yes, then those are indie bands, bands that release their music independently without enjoying the backing of any major record label. While not having the resources that a major record label has, an indie band has the freedom to experiment and target an audience that they know will enjoy indie music. In this article, we’ll list out those bands that we believe are some of the best indie bands.
Top 10 Best Indie Bands
There are many good indie bands, but there are some rock bands that have stood out in the music crowd, establishing themselves as the royalty of the indie band world. Given below is a subjective list of the best indie bands according to us.
Arcade Fire
An indie rock band from Montreal, Canada, Arcade Fire is one of the most popular indie bands to have come out of Canada. Fronting the band are the wife-husband duo of Regine Chassagne and Win Butler. The band boasts of an instrument line up that any other band would be envious of. Members of the band, apart from playing the guitar, drums and bass, also play the violin, cello, piano, xylophone, mandolin, harp and many other musical instruments. Funeral, the album that the band released in 2004, has been widely acclaimed as one of the best indie rock albums of the decade. Being awarded the Juno twice for their musical talents, once for songwriting and once for best album, the band is definitely one of the best indie alternative bands.
Arctic Monkeys
Definitely one of the best indie rock bands, Arctic Monkeys is made up of four members, Alex Turner as the vocalist, Jamie Cook on lead guitar, Nick O’Malley playing the bass, and Matt Helders as the backing vocalist and on drums. Widely recognized for being one of the first bands to not have a direct promotion campaign and instead popularized by uploads on fan websites, Arctic Monkeys make music that often has lyrics that are social commentary. Their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is in fact till date the fastest selling debut album for a UK band.
Death Cab for Cutie
Popularized by their tracks playing as background score for shows like The O.C. and Six Feet Under, Death Cab for Cutie has become a definite on any best indie bands list. An American band from Bellingham, Washington, that began as a one man band, has four members today and till date the band has released one demo, five EP’s and six studio albums. All of their albums have been well received, especially Transatlanticism and Plans, the latter receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album. Of course, it doesn’t hurt their popularity that lead vocalist Ben Gibbard is married to one of the royals of the indie film scene Zooey Deschanel.
Modest Mouse
Along with Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse is a favorite with most followers of the indie scene and finds itself on most lists of best indie bands of all time. Formed in Seattle, the band has six members, Isaac Brock, Jim Fairchild, Eric Judy, Jeremiah Green, Joe Plummer and Tom Peloso. It has been one of the main bands responsible for the popularity that indie bands enjoy today, selling more than three million records. Their name is derived from a story by Virginia Woolf, The Mark on the Wall, and more specifically from a passage, “I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest, mouse-colored people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises.”
Spoon
The O.C. has been responsible for the popularization of many indie bands and Spoon is another of those bands, despite having been around since 1993. Formed in Austin, Texas, Spoon is made up of Britt Daniel on vocals, Rob Pope on bass, Eric Harvey on guitar, keyboard, and Jim Eno on drums. In the year 2009, Metacritic, dubbed Spoon as the best overall indie band in the last decade, based on their consistently good performance in the last decade.
Sonic Youth
Formed in 1981, Sonic Youth, is currently formed of band members, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranadlo, Steve Shelley and Mark Ibold. Having experienced both critical acclaim and popularity among fans, Sonic Youth is considered to be one of the best indie alternative bands that is responsible for the popularity of alternative music as experienced today.
Tegan and Sara
Any list of the best indie rock bands, would be incomplete without the Quin twins, Tegan and Sara. They released their debut album in the year 1999 and have developed an extremely devoted fan base since. They take turns writing and singing the songs and both play the guitar and the keyboard. They have been nominated for four Juno awards including one for their last release Sainthood, that was nominated for the best alternative album.
The Decemberists
Fronted by Colin Meloy, The Decemberists are an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band releases a wide variety of music from pop to ballads. Their songs have a storytelling touch to them. The band was founded in 2000 and likes to maintain that the band members met each other in a Turkish bath. The first full record released by the band was Castaways and Cutouts.
The New Pornographers
Most people assume that the name of the band is a reference to Jimmy Swaggart saying that, “Rock and roll was the new pornography,” but the band’s name has more modest origins; a reference to a Japanese movie called The Pornographers, that the vocalist Carl Newman watched once. One of the best indie pop bands, there is nothing modest about the music of the band. Every album that the band has released has received exceptional reviews. The top 40 list of Pazz and Jop released by The Village always had an album by the band or a solo album by one of the band members between the years 2000 and 2006. The New Pornographers definitely remains one of the best indie bands of the decade to have come out of Canada.
The Kills
Put together an American vocalist/guitarist and a British guitarist and a drum machine to replace the drummer and what you get is, The Kills, one of the best indie bands of the decade. Wide critical acclaim has greeted the duo of Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, everytime they have released a studio album, of which there have been very few, with only three albums released in a decade of their existence. But fans have something to look forward with a fourth album in the works and news, that the album will be released this year.
This is a subjective list of best indie bands. Some of the best new indie bands may not have been listed here. Though hopefully, this list will meet the approval of many of you indie music fanatics.
By Tulika Nair