If in recent times is the oxymoron used to describe certain indie-mainstream band, something must have happened in recent years in the world of independent music: a kind of moving the concept from its original content with a vague sense that tends to incorporate a lot of things, too distant from those who have been for twenty years, the aesthetic codes that represent the musical universe "indie" (post hardcore, lo-fi, noise, alt-country, slowcore, post-rock, indie pop) and those related to the ethical concept of self-production and do it yourself. Also because of the fact that today's music market is mainly based on small labels and the majors have lost Microtrend and space and relevance, category ultimately could be applied to anyone. But not only in recent years have witnessed a "genetic mutation", where the term - writes journalist Carlo Bordone - means "a product category and style, mostly children, even the boom of the Strokes and hundreds of their clones ". Of course not only, but in perception, particularly among detractors, too. Why are greeted with enthusiasm the Italian release of a book by American journalist Michael Azerrad, American indie. 1981-1991 (Arcana Editions, original title, "Our Band Could Be Your Life). It is a beautiful book that examines the foundations of that revolution in the eighties underground that laid the foundations for good the best independent rock in the years to come, until 1991 - the year of Nirvana's Nevermind, the year in which the alternative rock reached the top of the Billboard charts unleashing a hunt for the majors until the final band of the independent in search of another strike of the economic worth of the band of Kurt Cobain. Although there are exclusions painful (and only version "americanocentrica") refers to critical bands like Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Beat Happening, Dinosaur Jr, Big Black and Fugazi and labels like SST, Sub Pop, K Records, Dischord and Touch & Go The beginnings of the birth of a network of small labels, independent radio, zines, small record shops that he started an alternative system to the mainstream music market, where they could find space music projects for a different audience, niche, supported by enthusiastic word of mouth and the love of fans and critics: an underground network based on cooperation, a "cultural underground railroad" in America that Reagan - and in opposition to that America - he realized that a printed record "was not the mysterious privilege reserved for large companies" and began to produce materials that music majors were never printed. It was the opening of possibilities generated by the punks, "anyone can do it." And then the spirit: the pursuit of an uncompromising artistic ideal. DIY rebellion. The work ethic. The idea of \u200b\u200bmaking music without necessarily being the star. Moreover, as the Minutemen said: "Look at us, we are just like you: three losers from the provinces are trying. Why do not you try it yourself? ". ( Andrea Tramonte, Unione Sarda 15/08/2010)
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