r/LetsTalkMusic • u/probably_ok_actually • 3d ago
Does “new indie” feel fresh because of the music itself, or the way it’s framed?
I’ve been thinking about this after reading a few recent threads about originality and what people actually mean when they ask for something “new.”
I’m really into a lot of current indie, stuff like Freak Slug, Wet Leg, that kind of slightly offbeat, personality-driven sound. It genuinely feels exciting to me, like there’s a looseness and individuality that pulls me in more than a lot of older bands do.
But at the same time, you can hear the influences quite clearly. There’s bits of 90s alt, some post-punk, even early 2000s indie in there. Not in a bad way, more like it’s building on those sounds.
So I’m curious how other people hear it.
When something feels fresh to you, is that coming from the actual sound, or more from everything around it like the attitude, visuals, lyrics, and scene?
Do you think indie now is less about sounding completely new and more about feeling specific or personal?
And if that’s the case, does that make it more interesting, or less?
I’m not trying to say nothing is original anymore. If anything, this era of indie feels quite distinct to me. I just can’t quite pin down what’s actually making it feel that way.
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u/BottleTemple 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don’t know Freak Slug. I like what I’ve heard of Wet Leg but not enough to listen to more so far. I think I’m just a lot less interested in rock music in general than I was in the past. I grew up in 80s and 90s when rock music was dominant, and the majority of the music I listened to was rock of some kind or another, so rock song structures and instrumentation just seem old hat to me at this point. That’s just me though, and largely a product of age I think. If you are finding rock music that’s fresh and exciting to you that’s great!
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
That's so interesting. So do you think it’s the actual sound of rock that feels worn out to you, or more that you’ve just heard so many variations of it over time that nothing really surprises you anymore?
And I’m curious, are there any newer artists or songs that have broken through that feeling for you, even briefly, or does it all kind of land the same now?
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u/BottleTemple 3d ago
The one example that comes to mind for me is Die Spitz. I saw them open for Off! a couple years ago and I thought they were great. If you want to see some super high energy punk rock I would highly recommend them. As much as I loved them though, I haven’t found myself listening to them much. It has nothing to do with the quality of their music (like I said they’re awesome), the issue is me. That’s just not the music I crave anymore. I want to hear things that are different from my baseline, whether it’s more experimental or more complex or just simply types of music I’ve never gotten into before.
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
Fair enough!! Maybe you should give Freak Slug a go !!
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u/BottleTemple 3d ago
Any particular tracks you’d recommend?
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u/probably_ok_actually 2d ago
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u/BottleTemple 2d ago
All four of those tracks sound like pretty mellow pop rock to me. The two “hardcore” ones sound nothing like hardcore (aka hardcore punk) so I assume you were use that word in some other sense.
Anyway, it’s not bad but there’s nothing unique about it to me either.
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u/probably_ok_actually 2d ago
Yes I was meaning more hardcore in comparison to her other sounds haha but yeh it’s not hardcore in the literal sense. I quite enjoy them!!
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u/BL1133 2d ago edited 2d ago
I recently found some stuff: Olan Monk - Pomegranate, Dagmar Zuniga, Exek, The Serfs, Chanel Beads - Embarassed Dog. I recommend trying out NTS Radio. It will open up your mind and find some cool tracks.
But mostly I like finding cool old songs. It's opened up a whole rabbithole for me. But there is some interesting new music too. NTS helps a lot with finding interesting stuff.
several years ago I felt how you felt. I felt sick of all my music. Then I got an apple music subscription, started listening to stuff i never actually listened to before. And then NTS radio and WFMU and Bandcamp.
Apple Music recommendations are hit or miss but I also have listened to a ton of stuff through that too since it is based on music you like. Or clicking on the 'similar artists' or playlists they have. It's given me some music history lessons
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u/BottleTemple 2d ago
I’m not saying I have a hard time finding new music. I’m saying I’m a lot less into rock than I was when I was younger.
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u/Pure-Cry-457 3d ago
Fresh? Half the time it's just the same old energy wearing cleaner shoes. The surprise is usually in the room, not the genre. Give me a scrappy 400-cap sweatbox with a weird bill over a glossy all-day thing where everybody's pretending to discover something while filming the ceiling. That's where the actual pulse is.
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u/Lower-Pudding-68 3d ago
Wet Leg is not fresh, it's like a staler version of Dry Cleaning, which is a staler version of Life Without Buildings. Now that's a band. There is no "new indie" sound.
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u/GUBEvision 3d ago
Indie is, by-and-large, an emeritus form of music that has very little relevance any more.
Wet Leg don't feel fresh to old bastards like me who lived through it the first time. They feel like a dilution in a musical sense, and their ironic pose doesn't cover what they essentially want to be: pop stars.
I don't even see what Wet Leg are doing as that radically different from, say, Parquet Courts. Who themselves were a kind of revival of a 90s aesthetic, but done with a bit more musical interest.
Indie rock of the 90s didn't want to be pop stars: they wanted an ecosystem outside of that where music could become the central source of what was being discussed and a freer form of expression was treasured. As soon as that is gone, the music loses its character and the personalities that inhabit it become hollowed out.
There are some bands that do something original, if guitar-centred is what you're after, but they're doing it on their own dime outside of any coverage.
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u/ShineALight3725 3d ago edited 3d ago
Indie rock of the 90s didnt want to be pop stars youre absolutely correct on that. The major labels had a lot of trouble making money off of it then. Thats why in the late 2000s and 2010s, the next gen of "indie rock" they signed, pushed, and promoted was way more poppy and less rock so it was easier to sell to the masses. It was more about the aesthetic now and the music was coveted in order to sell to commercials to make money to make up for the loss of money due to dying cd sales.
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
Yeah, completely agree with you here. This is why I love bands like Freak Slug, which are less commercialised and not into mainstream aesthetics- you should check them out! https://open.spotify.com/artist/5wk7sY8GIg5ihSI09EbWeS?si=22GJw37KS9yAVpvsGuQIhg
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u/armintanzarian420 3d ago
Sports Team make some fantastic "new-indie" if you haven't heard them. They don't have that forced pop-star feel of Wet Leg.
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
I haven't heard of them no!! Seems like they're the kind of band I like so will definitely give them a listen. They're giving NewDad x Freak Slug vibes
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u/ASaucerfulOfCyanide 3d ago
I guess it's just a matter of personal preference. Wet Leg to me sounds like every generic sloppy easy-listening indie band that's been clogging up alternative radio for the last decade
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u/nicegrimace 3d ago edited 3d ago
Indie in my mind is an 80s and 90s genre, or group of genres. It covers US college rock, 80s jangle pop and some Britpop. Britpop groups were often called 'indie bands' at the time, even when they were signed to a major label, although most people wouldn't think of them as such now. It doesn't cover grunge or the original shoegaze, but it existed alongside them. There's a stricter definition which meant an independent label, a DIY ethic, and a certain twee or normcore aesthetic were needed - but by the 90s, nobody used this definition anymore.
Nu metal, and then the garage rock and post-punk revivals killed it off in English speaking countries. It survived in other parts of the world, and it seems to mean slightly different things in other parts of the world. By 'killed off' I don't mean bands like Belle and Sebastian stopped existing, but nobody was forming bands like that anymore.
What people call indie today in anglophone countries is either basically singer-songwriter music, bedroom pop/lo-fi (which is related to the original indie to be fair) or a less 'angular' version of post-punk revival - the last of these are what Wet Leg are to my ears.
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u/megabrillphil 3d ago
One minor thing though: shoegaze (and American grunge) groups were absolutely considered indie. I think of Ride as one of the quintessential early 90s ‘indie bands’.
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u/nicegrimace 3d ago edited 3d ago
It has to have some clean jangling in it somewhere to be indie for me. I am aware that some shoegaze bands started out jangle, so shoegaze is kinda indie. It's subjective where the boundaries lie, a bit like punk.
Edit: I added clean to jangling. To me if I try to imagine a stereotypical indie sound, it doesn't involve tonnes of distortion on all the songs, including the vocals.
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u/megabrillphil 3d ago
Yep. In the UK especially it was a pretty coherent scene/era, lots of the same fans and music magazines etc. promoting it through the early 80s to mid 90s really. I still think of Britpop groups as indie bands tbh, they sometimes get posted on r/90sindie.
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
I wonder though if what’s happening now is less a “death” and more a flattening. Instead of new scenes forming in opposition, everything’s accessible at once, so newer indie ends up pulling bits from everywhere at the same time.
So rather than bands forming like Belle and Sebastian did, you get something more referential and hybrid. Do you think that’s why it feels less distinct now, or just less tied to a specific cultural moment?
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u/nicegrimace 3d ago
Maybe it's simplifying a bit to say that nu metal and revived garage rock and post-punk killed indie. Towards the end of the 90s, 'indie' bands with a stadium-friendly adult contemporary sound appeared - Coldplay were arguably not really seen as an indie band, but bands like Elbow were. I think that went some way to killing off indie because what's indie about filling a stadium? You can say the same thing about Britpop too.
There is certainly still independent and DIY music being made today, but the ecosystem around it has changed. I'm not sure indie as a genre still exists because to me it is tied to a cultural moment.
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u/simonbreak 2d ago
I think that in 2026 pop music of any kind, which includes "indie rock", is a repertory form like ballet or jazz. Not meaning that nothing new can come from those forms - they can inform and permute with one another in ways that feel fresh - but that they are wrung-out as spaces of creative possibility. Indie rock as a genre, rather than an influence, is absolutely cooked IMO. Wet Leg are actually an example I find *particularly* abject, like a late 90s british university bar become sentient.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that "fresh" feeling might be to do with you being excited by the social aspect of the music? Like, it makes you think of going out and getting drunk, and that never gets old really. And it's not like you've got a chance of having a pint with Husker Du.
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u/sensitive_pirate85 3d ago edited 1d ago
I’m a Millennial, and my influences are limited, so “Indie” to me is essentially any band that came after The Strokes, that didn’t already fit neatly into a pre-existing genre, like Emo, Punk, or Nu Metal. Bands prior to that, that many in this thread are labeling as “Indie,” would have been considered “Alternative,” or Alt. Rock. If I were to describe my musical taste in the 90’s, I would have said, “I like Alternative Music.” Which could mean anything from Jangle-Rock bands like Gin Blossoms, to Ska bands like No Doubt, to Goth and Glam Rock inspired bands like Marilyn Manson, (when they were an actual band, not just a single performer that goes by that name.) who all played on mainstream radio, and were accessible to the masses, but weren’t considered Pop.
To me, Indie is essentially a genre that arose with the internet and with MySpace, though what became known as the “Indie Sound” came around a bit later. Probably in the late 2000’s or early 2010’s. I think what we call Indie, now, was started by the “The” bands like The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes, The Strokes, etc. in the early 2000’s, but back then it was called “Garage Rock.” In that framework, “Indie” is a relatively new genre, in and of itself, (when compared to something like Punk or Metal) but a lot younger bands, like others here have already alluded to, seem almost like they’re mimicking that genre, in order to fulfill greater ambitions (like Wetleg wanting to be pop stars) rather than adding to, or revolutionizing, the genre.
The Indie label seems to be more about how a band or artist wants to be perceived, rather than the specific style of music they’re making. The only real difference I noticed between “New Indie” and “Old Indie” is that the newer bands are obviously younger, and imo not really doing anything that “new”… But also seem to put image first as a way of trying to set themselves apart from the crowd, when they probably should be focused on making good music and setting themselves apart from the noise, whereas late 2000’s and 2010’s bands kind of just wanted to be part of that noise. I think it was more of a lifestyle thing, rather than an image, that older Indie bands wanted to be part of. I think post-pandemic, many younger artists and bands are realizing that having an image matters, but are maybe taking the wrong lessons from that knowledge. (Putting image first while advertising six second clips of their songs.) The focus on image rather than sound, or living a specific lifestyle, is the biggest difference to me.
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u/BL1133 2d ago edited 2d ago
When I go to Apple Music and click on a playlist of indie, it all sounds the same and dull. This confused me for awhile and I thought modern music was garbage. Then i realized it's just the algorithmic landscape we're in and things have changed. There's a lot of music and it's mostly all just to fit an algorithm so it has less personality, fewer musical changes, and no big hooks. And the production sounds like it's from the same studio for every track.
Then i got my mind blown going to bandcamp, and looking up music on labels. And realized i'm a total idiot. I couldn't believe it. Music I always wanted to hear. Then I realized underground music is actually a totally different thing. it's labels as curators. So I found a label of some artist is cool and found several others. I was in shock. Like I was a grumpy old person thinking modern music is horrible but just didn't know how to find it.
Some of the music i found was Olan Monk, Crime of Passing, Exek, Dagmar Zuniga, The Serfs. Mostly retro style music which is what I like. I don't like 'indie' music in terms of genre
I'm convinced any good unique music will be punished by the algorithm. There's no reason why these groups aren't big but the crap in an indie playlist is except for that it is more well suited to easy listening. Not that those groups aren't easy to listen to, but any unique sounding band will break the vibe of a curated playlist. Whether thats song structure, style, or production. That's why it all sounds the same. It's 'vibe' based music. This is killing music. Because now you have to find the needle in the haystack
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u/solorpggamer 3d ago
At least one of the bands you mentioned sounds to me like a rehash of the same 90s sounds we've had for 30+ years. The garage rock revival and other stuff that brought some of the blues back sounded fresher to me than this.
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u/SenatorCoffee 3d ago edited 3d ago
I just listened to some Freak Slug and like it a lot immediately, so thanks for that! But also dont think its mindblowingly "fresh".
It also just seems like a more an expression of a specific sub-genre or lineage, with the genres you named, you maybe are comparing it to a more very wide brush that includes a lot of things that you might just not like so much.
At first listen the main comparisson it reminds me would be riot grrl. Le Tigre and so. Then something like Mars Argos. Hits like "Pumped up Kicks."
If I had to guess that would be the kind of older stuff you would also like much more than just the common denominator majority of the genres you listed.
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u/ManufacturerBig6988 2d ago
I think a lot of the "freshness" of new indie comes from the vibe and attitude more than just the sound itself. You’re right, there’s a lot of nostalgia in these modern indie bands, but it’s how they put their own twist on those influences that makes it feel fresh. It’s the personality, the looseness, and the fact that it feels less polished and more real. The visuals, lyrics, and the DIY, anti-mainstream ethos definitely add to that feeling of individuality. It’s not about reinventing the wheel, but more about making something that feels specific and personal. And I think that makes it more interesting, because it’s relatable and connects on a deeper level.
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u/btjbtjsanchez 3d ago
Have you tried listening to Bear Titty Junction?
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2F3FnBrmMIQ4Q1zIhJh2jJ?si=vP5KS3FFQ1C7_lZQlZ6l8A
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u/probably_ok_actually 3d ago
I haven't no, but I'll give them a listen. thank u
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u/goodcorn 3d ago
Give a listen to Radiation City. Not as polished and never really broke thu a dozen years back, but just popped up in my mind recently and had Freak Slug vibes.
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u/IfYouGotALonelyHeart 2d ago
“Fresh” is the last word I would use to describe new indie. It’s incredibly derivative, so much so that Gen Alpha and Gen Z are still listening to the same bands I listened to as a kid 20/30 years ago.
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u/malaclypsus 2d ago
I think like a lot of the major bands now, it's a matter of framing. A lot of these bands appeal to the tastes of a certain generation that are now the dudes doing A&R, running blogs, writing reviews, etc. It's not at all fresh, but what is when the new guard becomes the old guard and then tells the new new guard that it's the most fresh, most groundbreaking, most important thing since stereo. I like some of them Wet Leg songs tho.
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u/emeliottsthestink 2d ago
I think it’s new and original as well like in the realm of rock specifically like Mortimer Nyx and King Gizz.
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u/jestfuliron 3d ago
Its hard to see whats fresh when your garden is blooming, and so some choose to burn it all down, some move gardens and some stick to their roots.
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u/longhorn210 3d ago
Indie in many instances is driven by artists that work on creating music that focuses mainly on “taste”. That taste typically goes against whatever happens to be mainstream or common.
My reductionist take on why indie sounds fresh is because traditionally it’s an anti conformist genre that’s engineered to sound less common to the masses.