Do you know what indie music is?

I always understood indie to mean (technically speaking) more a type of record label than a genre. Several of my friends are indie artists, and it basically means that the artists manages their own career through their own record label rather than signing a deal with a major label and being subject to all the restrictions and regulations by which the major label is governed and creating their work with the visions and ideas of the major label in mind. Indie is short for "independent," but an indie artist can be of any genre. The term just refers to the fact that they operate independently, on their own terms. This allows them to be more productive and also allows them to own their work (a freedom most major label artists are not granted - I have several friends who have work owned by major labels from previous deals they were under even though they wrote the songs). It also means they have to market and promote their own work as well, and finance any tours, concerts, and other expenses themselves, which is often an area in which indie artists struggle as they often do not have the resources or the money that major labels do, nor is any of this arranged for them. This being said, most indie artists will emphasize that they don't care about money - at least not to the point of sacrificing and compromising their own standards to meet the vision of a major record company. That's the indie movement in a nutshell. As you can see, it has its pros and cons, but the music business has gotten so corrupt in recent years, however, that many artists do feel that "going indie" (as they put it) is worth it. Filmmakers, dancers, and other artists will often go indie in the same manner to give themselves more freedom to carry out their own unique visions.

I actually had this argument with a friend once who told me he hated "indie" music and when I pointed out one of his favorite albums, Bleed American by Jimmy Eat World, was as indie as they come (recorded almost entirely in Jim Adkin's basement with no label representation at all) he got really mad at me and said "'Indie' is a style of experimental, lo-fi, anharmonic noise people insist on calling music," turning the word "indie" into a genre classification like pop or rap or folk, rather than a label representation.

hi jamespfeifer, Indie term comes from the term "independent". So Indie music is played by artist who wants to be independent from the mainstream music. They play original music far from pop. An example of indie band is Arctic monkeys even if now they're not so indie as they were at the first album.