Before the punk explosion in the UK in the mid-1970s, six major record labels (what are now CBS/Sony, the American Warner and MCA, the Dutch Polygram, British EMI and German BMG) operated an effective monopoly on access to mass public taste, especially throughout the Anglophone world. Through its explicit challenge to bourgeois values, punk broke this monopoly, enabling independent (hence indie) labels to gain an effective market share. Consequently Stiff Records became immediately important, especially through their promotion of Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Other notable labels include: Rough Trade, who marketed the Smiths; Creation, who marketed Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub and, latterly, Oasis; 4AD with the Cocteau Twins; Kitchenware with Prefab Sprout; Beggar's Banquet; Demon and One Little Indian. Such labels' real independence from larger competitors was called into question particularly by Rough Trade's distribution problems in 1991.
As a style label indie is not particularly useful, although it does carry connotations of sensitive, somewhat introspective personas who generally lack strong vocal projection. Indie music eschews overt commerciality and relies on dense, overdriven guitar chords rather than riffs, alongside the presence of thousands of small-time dedicated bands. In the late 1980s the term became particularly associated with a new wave of Manchester bands such as Inspiral Carpets, Happy Mondays, New Order and Stone Roses. By the mid-1990s the best of indie was regularly on show at large-scale festivals, such as Glastonbury and Reading in the UK and Lollopallooza in New York.
S. Reynolds: ‘Against Health and Efficiency: Independent Music in the 1980s’, Zoot Suits and Second-Hand Dresses, ed. A. McRobbie (London, 1989), 245–55
C. Larkin, ed.: The Guinness Who's Who of Indie & New Wave (London, 1995)
ALLAN F. MOORE