The term “independent music” can be first defined by its method of production, release and promotion. With advancing technology of such as Apple’s GarageBand and PC’s Ableton, what used to cost millions to produce two decades ago can be performed on home computer with extremely lost cost. This drastic drop in the cost of music production allows the democratization of music producing and gave birth to a new wave of independent musicians in the past two decades.
In the book Pirate’s Dilemma by Matt Mason (2009), he opines that the end of top-down mass culture is creating opportunities and freedom for everyone in the world. The sub-culture trend started with Punk movement in the 70’s, which is an angry outcry against the rigid, established mainstream values and lifestyle. With each subsequent generation of sub-culture such as hip hop in the 1980’s, grunge in the 1990’s, indie music industry in the 2000’s and DIY movement today, these sub-culture eventually crossed over to the mainstream and successfully added its values and style to mass culture. The once monopolistic top-down mass system is facing competition from a bottom-up approach, which is turning mass culture into a more personalized, less centralized value system. Independent music sector symbolizes a new market structure in which individuals can produce, distribute and promote his
music freely. An individual is able to bring his personal, original and inventive style of music to the larger audience.
With the booming of independent music sector, the rigid boundary between mainstream and independent music markets 30 years ago has become blurred. The rise of social media has allowed independent singers to gain success by connecting with their audiences directly, bypassing the authority of traditional media.
In the book American Independent Cinema by Geoff King (2005), the author argues the booming of independent films in the U.S. since the 1980's represented a challenge to Hollywood. Subsequently, elements of indie films have been embraced and adopted by mainstream movies to a large extent. Formerly indie distributors such as Miramax and New Line became attached to Hollywood studios, while prominent indie talents (actors and directors) have moved on into mainstream market.
According to the essay "Hou Hsiao-hsien New Cinema's Individual Concern and Artistic Spirit" (侯孝賢“新電影”的個體關懷與藝術精神) by China scholar Liu Yu-fong (2015), Hou's films are primarily concerned about artistic, experimental and philosophical principles, thus entirely ignoring audience-friendliness, entertainment values and commercial values. While art-house films and commercial films have been witnessing cross-pollination since the 1980's, Hou is quoted as declaring "I see art-house film as an experimental lab. We experiment and develop innovative and adventurous film language here while mainstream films adopt the most successful elements from us."
Independent music sector models its role after the independent, art-house film industry sector. It specializes and encourages music with diverse, experimental and
innovative styles. This sector of the music industry functions as the experiment lab for innovative musicians to experiment cutting-edge sounds. When a particular style of music becomes popular or acclaimed enough in the independent sector, it then gets adopted by mainstream music label and is introduced to the general music audiences for consumption. Independent music sector attracts mostly music critic, avid music lover and music aficionados and is in nature an elite market. The mainstream music industry serves the general audience with run-of-the-mill taste who simply demand entertainment value and catchy sound.
A great example would be music artist Madonna who has enjoyed four
decades of success and is known for her chameleon image change and shifts in music styles. Although often misunderstood as a talentless, sexy star who uses scandal to sell her products, Madonna is in fact an intellectual who stays updated with the latest underground music trends and chooses her mutating music styles wisely to complete her each stage of changing persona. Laura DeMarco’s article “30 years of Madonna:
How the Queen of Pop used controversy, MTV and a talent for reinvention to craft one of the most successful careers in music history” printed in the Plain Dealer newspaper (2013) delineates each stage of Madonna’s music and image to constantly reinvent herself. In José I. Prieto-Arranz’s essay “The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna” (2012), the author dissects and analyzes the magnetic live performance and music/image change in different era.
Madonna’s major move of borrowing from the indie sector came with her 1998 album “Ray of Light,” which recruited young, emerging European producers to help her fashion an album of ambient, trip hop and house music songs. As
Rollingstone magazine’s music critic Rob Sheffield points out in his album review (Sheffield, 1998), this album introduced European ambient techno sounds as different from the traditional “dance music” to the American and global mass audiences. The success of this well-executed, stylish electronica album resurrected Madonna’s career from the debacle of “Erotica” in 1992.
After enjoying a first decade as a pop star of romantic ballad and dance numbers, Taiwan’s reigning pop queen Zhang Hui-mei (張惠妹) ventured into edgy, innovative music with her alter-ego Amit (阿密特) to explore rock and alternative music style, finding greater acclaim in this past decade. Zhang achieved this feat by hiring independent producer Adia (阿弟仔) and indie songwriter such as Sandee Chan (陳珊妮) and Hush to deliver the fresh sounds she desires. Zhang has used this alter-ego to release album twice: "Amit" (阿密特) in 2009 and "Amit 2" (阿密特 2) in 2015. She won a Golden Melody Awards for Best Mandarin Female Singer with
"Amit" in 2009. (Chen & Lin, 2016)
Besides Zhang Hui-mei, pop diva Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) is probably the most popular female pop star of the past two decades. She went through a similar career trajectory as Zhang. Tsai started out as a sweet young female songstress singing sweet ballads, winning the moniker "young guys' killer" (少男殺手) in her early years. In attempt to move into a more mature and artistic image, Tsai moved into dance and electronica sounds since the album "Dancer" (舞孃) in 2006. In recent years, Tsai has become a pop star with suave image makeover and cutting-edge sounds. Her "Muse"
album in 2012 incorporates elements of progressive house, techno, and trance while the album "Play" (呸) in 2014 experiments with elements of underground electronica
styles such as dubstep and trap music. She has cemented her status as Taiwan's supreme dancing songstress who is capable of borrowing cutting-edge sounds from the independent music sector and then sell it to mass audiences. Her music video for the song "Play" won the Red Dot Visual Design Award in German in 2015 and received a nomination by Berlin Music Video Awards in 2016. (Yiu, 2016)
The practice of mainstream, established artists to borrow and adopt elements of innovative style/technique from fresh, younger talents in order to reinvent themselves and stay relevant has been a time-honored tradition in art history. This strategy could be described in different terms in different era. Since the booming of independent film and music since the 1980's, this practice has been discussed by many scholars as
"mainstream" adopting "independent" elements in order to satiate audiences' eternal thirst for something innovative and fresh.
With the innovative approach of creating in independent sector, some established mainstream singers have made foray into indie style music after establishing mainstream commercial success. Taiwanese singer-songwriter Joanna Wang (王若琳) started her career singing cover of nostalgic old songs as dictated by her record company Sony Music. Feeling misrepresented and manipulated, she ditched the oldies routine and made foray into experimental rock later in her career and found acclaim and confidence as an artist (Huang, 2010).
Singaporean songstress Tanya Chua (蔡健雅) started out as a singer packaged by mainstream record company (Universal Records) but switched route to releasing albums independently, scoring three Golden Melody Award Best Female Mandarin Singer (金曲獎最佳國語女演唱人) award in the end. (Chen & Lin, 2016)
Apart from production/promotion method, the non-commercial nature of
independent music sector allows musicians to express their ideas more freely through music and broadened the musical palette drastically. Most mainstream commercial music is characterized by love songs with contagious melody and easy-to-digest lyrics, aided by glamorous album art and photos. Independent music, on the other hand, is capable of exploring much more diverse musical genres and content.
Independent music sector serves to accommodate music that functions as social, political and ideological discourse, which is not welcomed in the ballad-ridden commercial market. Acts such as Sheng-Xiang Band (生祥樂隊) -- Lin Sheng-Xiang won the Jury Prize at the Golden Melody Awards for his double-album “Besieged Village” (圍莊) in 2017-- and LTK Commune (濁水溪公社) who use music to communicate their social critique to audiences have had little commercial success but are treasured by media critics and fans as the consciousness of the society. (Chen, 2016) Indie punk band Fire EX‘s (滅火器) song “Dawning Light of the Island” (島嶼 天光) became a symbolic anthem during the Sun Flower movement in 2016. (Ren, 2014)
According to Bleu & Book, the single most popular music video from Taiwan region on YouTube in the year of 2016 is "Hip Hop Country Emotion" (嘻哈庄腳情) by southern Taiwan grassroots hip hop group 911 (玖壹壹), with the total view tallying 60 million. 911's two other music videos also entered into YouTube Taiwan's year end top 10 chart in 2014 and 2015. (Bleu & Book, 2017)
Bleu & Book also points out the role of indie music sector to speak out for society’s marginalized groups. The other independent music band that enjoyed
overnight success in 2016 is No Party For Cao Dong (草東沒有派對) which excels in grassroots electronica. While 911 uses hip-hop to critiques the society in sarcastic tone, the latter wails about existential anguish and malaise for Taiwan's displaced youngsters. Both indie sensations serve as spokesperson for the disenfranchised youth of Taiwan. No Party For Cao Dong's meteoric rise in recent years enabled it to beat out former indie crossover power force MayDay (五月天) to win the Best Band Award at the Golden Melody Awards in 2017. Clearly, independent music industry excels in expressing the anger of society's marginalized groups who feel ignored by the mainstream. This music sector is also enjoying impressive economic profit by serving this under-represented consumer base.