The Smiths and Morrissey

  The Smiths characterised many of the aspects that are associated with the indie genre in the present day.

  A lot of these aspects were illustrated by their frontman, Morrissey. Firstly, Morrissey's abhorrence of the British political system presented an image of himself to his fans and the general public of a person who enjoys "sticking it to the man", thus conforming to the rebellious aspect of indie music. Morrissey often expressed this disdain through his lyrics. For example, in 'Margaret on the Guillotine' he ponders wishfully the prospect of Margaret Thatcher dying. Despite now arguably living a bourgeoisie lifestyle, the fact that he still has a Punk-like ethic suggests he still has a connection with his working-class origins.

  Like many members of indie bands raised in a working-class environment however, he voices that he always felt somewhat of an outsider - indie music is seen as being made for 'the outsider'. Juxtaposed to his traditionally heterosexual masculine working-class surroundings, Morrissey was slightly fragile and publicly ambiguous as regards to his sexuality. Morrissey personifies some of the ideas of post-modern feminism, showing that, regardless of a person's gender, we are capable of both 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviour, which is the basis of Queer theory.

  

  The Smiths conformed to the staple image of an indie band, dressing in plain, smart, and dark clothing, as well as having a lot of their photographs in black and white. This styling is often used to convey the idea of the music being more important than styling (hence why they dressed quite plainly), as well as a way of "sticking to the man" considering how over-glamorised most artists were in the charts during The Smiths' time together as a band. 

Second Step Of Obtaining Permission To Use My Chosen Band's Track

  I got a reply from 'It's All Indie' regarding my want to contact the band 'Physics'.

  However, they had not yet gotten back to me, so I created a Soundcloud account in order to contact the band, then sent them this message.

First Step Of Obtaining Permission To Use My Chosen Band's Track

  The track I chose to use was "Room in your Heart" by Physics. I downloaded it as part of It's All Indie's May/June unsigned mixtape to obtain and listen to the track. Below is the comment I left on It's All Indie's Facebook page in inquiry about how to contact the band.

  Note: when I re-sized the image on Microsoft Paint, some of the text was distorted; it should say 'band' where it says 'banc' as well as 'to' where it currently reads ':o'.

Joy Division

  Being one of the pioneers of the Post-Punk movement, Joy Division preceded the New Wave era which some of their members went on to form one of the most influential bands of (New Order). In all, through their sound, but also image, Joy Division had significant influence on the evolution of indie as a genre.

  The Gothic image on their Closer album cover represents their bleak and depressing sound. The Gothic is regularly associated with religion and death, and this album cover incorporates both - the original image comes from a sculpture situated in a cemetery in Genoa.
  As is the case with most album covers, the image is 'classical'. This is because it is clearly posed, with the image replicating a sculpture. However, the brutality of the image - there is a man lying dead on the table - makes it slightly 'grotesque'.
  Low-level lighting is used to create a moody feel and illuminate the central figures on the album cover. It gives off the impression of a small amount of light coming from despair. This reflects the music on the album, as the songs are often desolate and depressing, but illuminated by diminutive sparks of hope. The generally melancholic and dark, but occasionally bright colours are still prevalent within the indie genre.

  This image conforms to the staple image of early, as well as many modern, indie bands because of the plain, smart, and generally dark clothing that the band members are all wearing. Additionally, although colour photography was very much established when Joy Division were around, almost all photographs of them are in black and white. This reflects the bleakness and melancholic nature of their music.

  As can be seen in the video above, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis had a quite irregular dancing style. This conforms to the convention of indie being for "the outsider".

The Velvet Underground's Image And Audience

  As well as musically influencing current Indie artists, The Velvet Underground's image and audience can be compared to indie artists past and present. The influence that their image had/has can be seen in the below pictures - there is a striking similarity between Sterling Morrison of The Velvet Underground (far left) and Liam Gallagher of Oasis (centre) because of their similar hair and sunglasses.

  In general though, The Velvet Underground's plain, smart and dark image has been adopted by many indie artists since; the two examples below being Chapel Club and The Smiths.

  Although not recognised as much until after their time together as a band had ended, The Velvet Underground's audience can be comparable to that of indie artists. They were seen as too obscure for the mainstream - a principal quality of indie music, it seems, is to purposely go against the grain - and their music was appreciated mainly by critics and students. This conforms to the idea of indie music being for a 'refined' taste, but also as a way of "sticking it to the man", hence why students are attracted to the genre because of it being portrayed as rebellious, therefore appealing to teenagers. However, a lot of teenagers are likely to cave in to peer pressure and therefore listen to whatever music is deemed most socially acceptable at the time. This raises another point regarding the audience for Indie music, the one of it being for 'the outsider'.