Contemplating Landfill Indie

At the end of 2009 many music articles and blogs devoted much attention to the decline of British indie music, and the term ‘landfill indie’ has been coined and popularised to describe the saturation of the genre. Unlike most music neologisms, this is actually a fairly apt and useful term. The only difference is, what is now called ‘landfill indie’ has been around for far longer than just 2009.
Of course, much of what I say here is objective; but for me this began at some point in 2006 in the immediate aftermath of the Arctic Monkeys debut album. The Sheffield four-pieces stunning and admittedly well deserved success would, as every successful band does, inspire record labels to jump on a popular trend and replicate it as much as possible. Consequently, we had ‘indie’ acts who the music press initially favoured (The Enemy, The Twang, The View, The Kooks) and rubbished (The Fratellis, Scouting For Girls, The Hosiers, The Pigeon Detectives). All of these acts, in my view, were utterly insipid bandwagon jumpers, totally devoid of originality.


Nevertheless, all of these acts sold well, some topping the album charts and near all having top ten singles. At the same time, already existing groups like Razorlight and the Kaiser Chiefs, once adored by the press, now vilified, produced their most commercially successful work. It was around this time that I stopped buying NME after being a faithful reader for an unbroken five years, and I focused my attention on electro/dance music and barely listened to guitar music at all.
Well, it’s now four years later and things have come full circle. Every single act I have mentioned above have delivered follow up albums with significantly fewer sales and with diminishing critical standing. Several artists, even acclaimed ones, stumbled on their third albums: the Arctic Monkeys latest record sold a fifth of what their debut album did, Franz Ferdinand underperformed significantly with their third album as did Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight and Bloc Party. Even established stadium rock monsters like U2 floundered with their latest release ‘No Line on the Horizon’ despite (astonishingly in my opinion) good reviews. Perhaps most significantly, out of the top 20 best selling artists of last year only two were British bands.
Critically, the majority of these acts have taken a significant bashing. The Arctic Monkeys’ album, although praised by some as a brave leap forward, was for me a sign of them descending into Dad rock hell. NME decided it now hated Razorlight and The Enemy, and (probably correctly) championed the commercial downfall of previously successful, but godawful acts like The Pigeon Detectives and Scouting for Girls. For me, British indie hit a now legendary nadir when the group Ray Gunn delivered a cringe worthy, but hilariously awful Spinal Tap esque C4 interview. Cultural historians could use this as a helpful pinpoint of ‘the end’. Indeed, the record label was so embarrassed by it, that even now its difficult to find on youtube or google video.


 Why has this happened? Is the ‘landfill’ explanation justified? Probably, all trends must to die out eventually, but I feel that the lack of ‘good’ records is surely another explanation. What has happened, at least in terms of the charts, is that the pendulum has swung back to pop music. Take a look at this weeks singles chart (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles/) and its dominated by pop acts, with few bands in sight. Now, I can’t stand it when music snobs go on about ‘real music’ at the expense of pop, for me Girls Aloud were one of the finest acts of the past decade and Lady GaGa has produced an outstanding collection of singles in the last year, and Florence has managed somehow to keep her toe in both camps. But for those who do believe in the concept of ‘real music’ in the mainstream, it’s a worrying period.
Still, acts like The Horrors, The Big Pink, Wild Beasts and especially The XX have produced fine albums in the past year, but they do not have the aesthetic to win over the masses. Perhaps this is a good thing, but a glance at the BBC’s Sound of 2010 poll shows that for the time being, a saviour is a long way off, British or otherwise. Still, when it does come it will all happen again, such are music trends. Either way, you’re best sticking with the synthesiser for the time being.