The Success of Indie Music

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Indie Music
What makes indie music special in the music industry is the fact that it is produced outside the studio system. Indie artists rise up out of obscurity through their own grit and determination, their own ability to publicize themselves and gain traction, their own talent and genius, and their own development of a fan base. Unlike the many artists today who are groomed from childhood—their fans brought to them via a range of media conglomerates with overlapping boards of directorates, their music written for them by ghost writers, their look developed for them by stylists, their persona created for them by marketing specialists—indie musicians carve a name out for themselves via the tools of the 21st century—social media, streaming services, and DIY (do-it-yourself) merchandise. One of the legends of the indie music scene exemplifies the raw talent and tenacity of this particular group: Daniel Johnston, who recorded his songs on a tape deck in his parents’ basement, handed them out to customers at the drive-thru where he worked, made a t-shirt that ended up being worn by Kurt Cobain on MTV and suddenly saw his fame skyrocket, his songs getting covered by a range of popular artists. Today, the indie music scene is even different from what it was when Johnston got going in the early 1980s. Today, the ability to get one’s name out there just as a bedroom artist like Clairo far surpasses anything that could have be done in the past. This paper will show how indie musicians today—bedroom artists like Clairo and the actor-turned-singer Childish Gambino—build a brand/identity for themselves by developing relationships with the public via social media and through the development of their own fan base thereby build a relationship with the music industry.
Justin Bieber is not an indie artist—but he got his start as one. Justin Bieber was discovered by his agent on social media. As Schawbel notes, Scooter Braun saw Bieber on YouTube and arranged to have the young boy meet Usher, Braun’s partner in Raymond Braun Media Group. Bieber ended up signing a record contract with Island Records, sold millions, won Grammys, made millions, and now boasts more than seven million followers on Twitter and 20 million followers on Facebook (Schawbel). Bieber catapulted from social media, barely a young tween indie artist, to being a celebrity virtually overnight—thanks to the keen eye of a manager-producer and the packaging talents of the music industry, which present the Biebs in a good light for fans to fawn over.
Bieber, however, does not do the indie music scene justice, as he was barely even anything when Braun discovered him. He is just an example of how social media is used today to help get people’s music careers started. A better example of how indie musicians do it all, develop their songs, music videos, fans and reputation without any initial help from the music industry is the duo of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, whose debut album won a Grammy and whose 2013 song “Thrift Shop” went straight to top of Billboard’s charts. The duo directed a music video that got more than 40 million views when it dropped on YouTube, and their sudden swelling of a following got them enough clout to get a contract with the music industry: “backed by radio-promotion muscle from Alternative Distribution Alliance and Warner Bros.,” Macklemore and Ryan Lewis became the biggest indie artists to find mainstream success since Lisa Loeb did it with help from actor friend Ethan Hawke (Horowitz; Feeney).
What made everything work for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis was a combination of ingenuity, artistic talent, understanding of social media, technical skill, and the most important thing of all in the indie world—the DIY mentality. Instead of waiting to get discovered like some Justin Bieber, they went out and announced themselves to the world with a full-on press. Social media helped them to cultivate their brand and status, and from there they were able to show Warner Bros. that they could command attention. Warner Bros. then got them air play on the radio, which put the duo in the minds of radio-heads, and the rest was history. Self-promotion was at the heart of it all, though—and self-promotion is what the indie music scene has generally always been about.
What social media has enabled to happen is for indie artists to take self-promotion to a whole new level and really reach new audiences, develop a brand and a core of followers, and create and share music videos to help sell the brand and the songs. Today’s indie artists show that “the heart of the industry, the record companies,” may not be quite as important as they used to be (Shuker 9)—at least, perhaps, the recording studios. Today, everyone can have their own personal recording studio with the right software and an iMac. Pro Tools gives every indie artist the same level of gear as professional recording studios—so in that sense, yes, the recording industry is less powerful today than in the past. However, there are many other aspects to the recording industry—studios themselves are just a drop in the bucket. Where the music industry is still dominant is in “publishing; music retail; the music press; music hardware, including musical instruments, sound recording and reproduction technology; tours and concerts, and associated merchandising (posters, t-shirts, etc); film, television, and MTV; and royalties and rights and their collection/licensing agencies” (Shuker 10). The music industry is part of the overall culture industry, a term coined by Adorno Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School (as Shuker points out). The culture industry is responsible for putting up the big bucks to get ideas, images, sounds, moving pictures out into the public arena. Movies cost money to make. Songs cost money to be played. The culture industry covers a lot of ground to manage all of that, as it essentially has a monopoly on the means of production and dispersion. Or, as Garnham puts it: the culture industry uses “the characteristic modes of production and organization of industrial corporations to produce and disseminate symbols in the form of cultural goods and services, generally, though not exclusively, as commodities” (25). For an indie artist to break into the culture industry and establish a relationship with the music studios is really nothing short of miraculous—and, yet, today it is just about par for the course thanks to the influence of social media and the ability of indie artists to market themselves and show the studio executives that they have enough brand appeal to invest in and start promoting on the big stage.
One can look at Childish Gambino for instance. Donald Glover, Jr., has been a performer since his 20s. He self-released music albums to build his indie status before eventually signing with Glassnote Records in 2011 (Mench). However, Glover did not really make it big as a musical artist until he dropped the song “This is America” as Childish Gambino through a joint effort with Saturday Night Live, where he was guest hosting to promote his work on a new film. The song and video suddenly catapulted him into a limelight that the music industry could build on. Through his indie roots and his ability to market his musical talents through his acting celebrity connections, Glover used his status to develop a relationship with the music industry. Similar to what Macklemore and Ryan Lewis did when they produced their own music video and dropped it on YouTube only to see it go viral, Glover’s video for the song “This is America” went viral with over 400,000,000 views since its release in May of 2018. With that kind of traction, Glover did not have to do much convincing for the culture industry to sign him. However, Glover was really only able gain so much attention for his music thanks to his acting, which got him the gig as host of Saturday Night Live, where the Gambino was supposed to make his debut. Most indie artists do not have that kind of status in the entertainment industry already—so Glover was using the weight and chops he had already accrued simply to shift into another mode of artistic expression. Nonetheless, his music was not a collaboration with the music industry but rather what a way for him to get his ideas out into the public and for the public to then give the music industry notice that it wanted more of what Gambino had to say. Thus, the power of social media for indie artists today is in the fact that it gives voice to the artist, who then empowers the people to express what they want more of: it is the ultimate democratizing tool, as it allows audiences to choose and select what they appreciate and what they want to place in demand. Instead of relying on the music industry or the overall culture industry to choose for them, today’s followers of social media sift through the good and the bad of the indie world and get trending those worthy contributions from musical performers and artists that others also want to celebrate.
Social media has thus turned into a way for the music industry to see what the public wants. Music studios who keep a pulse on what is popular can look at social media to see how music fans are responding to the latest and greatest of the indie world. Glover is an example of an established acting start giving his fans a dose of his musical talents and using YouTube to become an indie sensation—which of course then enabled him to link up with the music industry and get his music career really on the road for good this time. Other indie artists may not hit the jackpot in the same way, but they are out their building their brand all the same and thereby developing a relationship with the music industry on their own terms.
Clairo is an example of a bedroom artist who did not rely on any fancy production numbers or videos like Macklemore’s or Gambino’s but rather on her own personality, charm and ability to manage a YouTube account. She dropped a song and video on her YouTube channel that went viral with 22 million views and, as Zoladz notes, “in the coming months, she’d be profiled by Pitchfork and The Fader, ink a 12-song deal with the latter publication’s record label, and sign on with Chance the Rapper’s manager.” She was the ultimate DIY-er who just so happened to receive a little help from her marketing exec dad. Nonetheless, had she not built her fan base on social media, the music industry would have had no reason to even give her notice. Maybe her dad helped to control the levers once things were in motion, but her rise to instant fame as an indie artist was all her own doing. Her lo-fi recording “Pretty Girl” went viral not because of anything her dad did but because it exuded talent and raw genius. It was full of the essential indie artist vibes that give people the good kind of goose pimples and keep them coming back for more.
Indie music today has been able to stand up for itself and become something more than it ever could have been back in the 1990s. It have become a force unto itself—something the music industry can sit back and let happen, and then when it does happen can get out the contracts and ink a deal with whatever new indie artist that masses have selected as the next big thing. There is no more need for grooming them out of the gate the way they used to do on the Mickey Mouse club. In one sense, this takes a load off for the record industry. As Shuker notes, “the record industry has historically been dominated by a group of large international companies commonly referred to as the majors. The major labels are usually involved in all aspects of management, production, distribution, and sale of recorded music, attempting as far as possible to control these different aspects” (14). With the arrival of social media, the game has changed. The indie artist now has more control over distribution and production. DIY-ers are a welcome change of pace for audiences who do not care about slick, production values: they want authenticity—something they can identify with. A teenage girl like Clairo singing directly to other teens about falling in love is something that can hit all the right notes. The video is seen by millions overnight and suddenly Clairo is in demand. Now the majors can step in and offer to manager her career, provide more appropriate distribution (a record, a tour, and so on), and control the relationship between the artist and the audience from that point on. The indie artist is likely to leap at the chance to work with the majors—as Clairo certainly was—as it is a way to be “validated,” or legitimized. However, what was authentic about Clairo in the first place risks being displaced by the managed approach brought by the majors. This is the risk run by indie artists looking to form a relationship with the majors. Macklemore has been able to maintain his indie status while simultaneously becoming a mega-star thanks to the production values of his skilled crew and his insistence on managing his own career and artistic expressions. Not all indie artists go the same way, however. Again, Shuker points out that “original musical ideas and styles, generated organically, are taken up by the record industry, which then popularizes them and adheres to them as the standard form” (15). This essentially creates “a new orthodoxy” that new emerging indie artists have to “break through” in order to resonate and connect with audiences (Shuker 15). It is a continual process of building up and breaking down, capitalizing on one’s talent only to see that in order to maintain the virtue of being an artist one must renounce the relationship with the industry that can bring the big payoff.
Shuker notes that even in the recording industry, the independent labels have been the ones to really revolutionize the industry and bring in the big names who changed the course of music. Branson at Virgin brought in the Sex Pistols and the Stones, for example. Without that willingness to be independent from the majors—to be one’s own thing—music would dry up and evaporate. The indies constantly bring in new life and talent and genius to the industry. The relationship they build up with the majors once they have secured a following is mainly a business solution to the problem of looking into the future, looking into one’s account and finding not enough for retirement. It may not make for the best relationship for fostering creativity—but new talent will emerge, and is doing so now more than ever thanks to social media.
In conclusion, social media is the new link between the indie artists and the music industry. It is the bridge between creativity and originality and the power of the culture industry. The emerging indie artists of today offer a range of products—from bedroom art like that made by Clairo one morning when she felt like expressing something new and unique to the world, to the sleeker, hipper and bigger productions of guys like Macklemore and Childish Gambino. In any case, once they establish their chops, they can move on to the next stage in the business—getting signed by a major or at least working with the industry to promote their works. The majors win by getting a cut of the new pie; the indies win by getting exponentially more exposure.

Works Cited
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Zoladz, Lindsay. “The Curious Case of Clairo.” The Ringer, 2018.
https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/7/25/17610744/clairo-diary-001-music-industry