Indie Rock Strikes Gold

4.09.2007

Indie Rock Strikes Gold

by Stephen Tringali

It looks like that hemp-wearing hippie running a tiny independent label out of his basement has finally stuck it to the corporate music industry.

Independent music’s first victory this year arrived in late January. The Shins’ third LP, Wincing The Night Away, debuted at Number Two on the Billboard charts, selling 118,000 units.

Sub Pop, the independent label The Shins call home, has never had one of its bands reach the Number Two spot on the Billboard charts, much less the Top 40 rankings. (By the way, Bruce Pavitt whose idea for Sub Pop started with cassettes and a fanzine in 1979 is no longer with the label. Although he admits to wearing long hair, a beard, and flannel we have been unable to determine if he indeed wore hemp clothing.) According to Pitchfork Media, the label’s highest Billboard ranking before the latest Shins release was 79. That happened back in 1996 when the Afghan Wigs put out Black Love.

Independent music’s second victory followed quickly. In early March, The Arcade Fire released their second LP (Neon Bible) on Merge Records. It immediately rose to the second spot on Billboard’s Top 200 list, selling 93,000 copies and bowing only to the beyond-the-grave might of Notorious B.I.G. and his hits compilation.

The best argument in favor of indie-rock’s rising popularity, however, is by far Modest Mouse topping the Billboard charts in March with We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. That album (their sixth) has sold more than 128,000 copies so far.

Granted, Modest Mouse haven’t technically been an indie band since before 2000. They moved to major label Epic before recording The Moon & Antarctica. (Before Epic, the band was signed to Up Records but also had releases on Sub Pop and other indie outlets.) Our basement-dwelling hippie friends may no longer be earning money from their record sales, but at least more people are listening to the indie-rock sound.

That’s all that really matters, right?

Whether or not these record sales are cause for celebration, they still don’t answer the question of why. Why are bands like The Shins, whose first album didn’t even rank on the Billboard charts, and Modest Mouse, who spent more than ten years in obscurity, getting attention now?

It’s likely due to exposure. The Shins got a huge serving of that when Natalie Portman dropped their name in the film Garden State. And since then, their songs have been cropping up in commercials left and right. One for McDonald’s here and another for the Gap there.
Modest Mouse have had their fair share of exposure as well. The band’s fifth release, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, produced the oft-played single “Float On.” That song became so popular, in fact, that someone with American Idol decided to cover it for a commercial. Although Good News For People Who Love Bad News debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard charts, it has now sold more than 1.5 million copies.

If these indie artists are canoodling so closely with corporate America and profiting from it, are they compromising a piece of their integrity in order to reach widespread popularity?
Many indie music stalwarts will likely deride bands like The Shins and Modest Mouse. They will call out “Sell Out” and accuse them of prostrating before the masses at their own artistic expense. You have to ask yourself, though: what’s really wrong with more people listening to indie-rock?

That tiny, esoteric band from Nowhere, America won’t be your little secret anymore. But at least they can now live sufficiently on the money they make playing concerts and selling records.

(Photo of The Shins playing London by The Slow Wonder of Bristol, England via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. To see Modest Mouse's video for the song "Dashboard," please check below.)

For other recent items covering indie rock please see: