Landfill indie
Landfill indie | |
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![]() Peter Doherty of the Libertines has been credited with pioneering landfill indie. | |
Stylistic origins | |
Cultural origins | Early 2000s, United Kingdom |
Other topics | |
Landfill indie is a style and era of British indie rock. The term was coined by music journalist Andrew Harrison in 2008 to describe a wave of guitar bands that emerged in the mid-2000s that were influenced by the commercial success of the Libertines.
The landfill indie era has been retrospectively associated with the indie sleaze[1][2] aesthetic, a term coined in 2021, to describe the fashion and visual style of landfill indie[3][4] bands, New York's post-punk revival and electroclash scene[5], as well as early online blogosphere related music scenes such as blog rock[6] and bloghouse.[7][8][9][10]
Notable acts associated with the movement were Arctic Monkeys[11], the Wombats,[12][13] the Cribs, the Kooks, Hard-Fi, Pigeon Detectives, Babyshambles, Scouting for Girls, the Vaccines, Razorlight, the Fratellis, Courteeners, the Maccabees, Little Man Tate, the Enemy, Holloways, Mystery Jets, Sunshine Underground, The View, the Twang, the Rifles and Kaiser Chiefs.[14][15]
Characteristics
[edit]The Guardian defined the sound of landfill indie to be that of: "angular, jangly guitars plus big riffs plus amusingly pretentious lyricism".[16]
Music critic Simon Reynolds argued that the "landfill indie" era was characterized by an excess in indie rock bands in response to the popularity of the 2000s indie rock revival. According to Reynolds, what made the music "landfill" was not a lack of musical skill, but a proliferation of formulaic artists who were stripped from the naivety, innovation and authenticity that defined earlier indie acts such as Bogshed and Beat Happening, stating:[17]
"[...] indie wasn't crappy for a purpose. In fact, it wasn't especially inept or ramshackle anymore, so much as drearily adequate. Instrumentally, there was just a sustained absence of flair in the playing. This guitar-based music didn't rock, but equally the songcraft wasn't sufficiently strong, or forcefully sung enough, for it to make the grade as proper pop music".
Reynolds later stated, "None of these groups could honestly be described as pointing the way to any kind of future; there was little about them that would have been incomprehensible to, say, a Smiths fan in 1985".[17] Furthermore, the BBC referred to the year 2009, one of the prominent years for landfill indie as "the year indie music died".[18] However, publications like the NME championed many landfill bands at the time by frequently placing them on the front page. Metro Magazine later claimed that the 2000s landfill indie era was a time when "the NME ruled a new saviour of rock music seemingly every week."[19]
Vice retrospectively labelled Razorlight's Johnny Borrell as the "one man who defined, embodied and lived Landfill Indie" due to his forming of a "spectacularly middle-of-the-road" band despite his close proximity to the Libertines.[20][21][22]
History and etymology
[edit]The term "landfill indie" was coined by Andrew Harrison in 2008, while writing for the British music magazine, The Word. Harrison used the term to describe a wave of generic, formulaic indie bands that emerged following the success of the Libertines, who emerged out of the post-Britpop[17] landscape of the 1990s British alternative rock scene.[16] In America, their variant of the landfill indie era was nicknamed "The Deleted Years" or encompassed by the "blog rock" movement.[23][24][25][26]
In the early 2000s, the NME coined "the New Rock Revolution" to describe a wave of emerging rock bands, spurred by the success of American acts such as the White Stripes and the Strokes, with the former spearheading the 2000s garage rock revival movement whilst the latter led the New York post-punk revival.[27][28] Bands like the Strokes went on to inspire influential British groups across the Atlantic, such as the Libertines, whom NME described as "the bed-haired Brit version of [the Strokes] almost as soon as they appeared."[29][30][31][32]
In addition, the term landfill indie would continue to be used as a pejorative as well as a label to describe this period of British alternative music.[33][34][35][36]
Decline and revival
[edit]In a 2009 article for the Guardian, journalist Peter Robinson cited the landfill indie movement as dead, blaming the Wombats, Scouting For Girls, and Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong by stating "If landfill indie had been a game of Buckaroo, those three sent the whole donkey's arse of radio-friendly mainstream guitar band monotony flying high into the air, legs flailing."[37] The initial success of the movement was beginning to subside, leading commentators to discuss its decline as a phenomenon and argue that it had been overtaken by the more musically and emotionally complex music of indie rock bands like Animal Collective, Micachu and the Shapes, Gang Gang Dance, TV on the Radio, High Places, Foals, Vampire Weekend, Telepathe, Dirty Projector, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie.[38][17]
Although the style declined in prominence by the early 2010s, the landfill indie era went on to experience a gradual revival.[39] This resurgence was first marked by the emergence of the hashtag #indieamnesty, created by musician Rowan Martin[16][40] in April 2016, and later by the launch of the Instagram account @indiesleaze in 2021, curated by Olivia V, which documented and celebrated the visual aesthetic of the era, which was later labelled indie sleaze[41]. Some sources credit the COVID-19 lockdowns[42] as contributing to a collective nostalgia for the landfill indie era.[43][8][2][44][45][46]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "How Indie Sleaze Went High Fashion". ELLE. 2022-05-05. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ a b Cosslett, Rhiannon Lucy (2022-01-26). "Gen Z are bringing back 'indie sleaze', and I suddenly feel ancient". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Cunningham, Katie (2021-12-17). "'Everyone was partying for their life': Bang Gang, bloghouse and the indie sleaze of the mid-2000s". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ "The Kooks on growing up and the indie sleaze revival — "It was very debauched"". hungermag.com. 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Hunt, El (2022-02-15). ""There was a sense of optimism": how '00s indie sleaze made a massive comeback". NME. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ Tenreyro, Tatiana (2022-10-13). "Welcome to the Year of Indie Sleaze". SPIN. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ Slone, Isabel (January 12, 2022). "The Return of Indie Sleaze Style". Harper's Bazaar. Archived from the original on August 7, 2022. Retrieved August 9, 2022.
- ^ a b "The Kooks on growing up and the indie sleaze revival — "It was very debauched"". hungermag.com. 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Indie Rock's Future is Female". ODDCRITIC. 2025-02-25. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Indie Rock's Future is Female". ODDCRITIC. 2025-02-25. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Beaumont, Mark (2020-09-01). "The term 'landfill indie' is pure snobbery from people who don't know how to have fun". NME. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ "The Wombats Prove They're Still the Kings of Landfill Indie". Catalyst. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "The Wombats reject AI and prove indie lives on with "messy and charming" 'Oh! The Ocean'". headlinerhub.com. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Akinfenwa, Jumi; Joshi, Tara; Garland, Emma (27 August 2020). "The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time". Vice. Archived from the original on 11 November 2022.
- ^ Power, Ed (2023-03-10). "Interpol made one decent album – so why do we revere New York rock and sneer at British indie?". The i Paper. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ a b c Aroesti, Rachel (2017-03-03). "Rebirth of the uncool: why landfill indie should finally get its dues". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ a b c d Reynolds, Simon (2010-01-04). "Simon Reynolds's Notes on the noughties: Clearing up the indie landfill". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ G. Cochrane (January 21, 2010), "2009: 'The year British indie guitar music died'", BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, archived from the original on November 25, 2010.
- ^ "Indie music was the real winner at this year's Brit Awards". Metro. 2023-02-15. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Akinfenwa, Jumi; Joshi, Tara; Garland, Emma (27 August 2020). "The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time". Vice. Archived from the original on 11 November 2022.
- ^ "Did Razorlight create "landfill indie"? Here's what Johnny Borrell said". Radio X. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Ben Rogerson (2009-01-21). "BLOG: Have Razorlight killed guitar music?". MusicRadar. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Floating on and selling out: 2004 was the year "indie" lost all meaning". AV Club. Retrieved 2025-07-20.
- ^ T., Walker (21 January 2010), "Does the world need another indie band?", Independent, archived from the original on 4 March 2010.
- ^ Rafaeli, J. S. (2016-04-05). "The Definitive History of Landfill Indie in Seven Songs, Narrated by Johnny Borrell". VICE. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Read This: Were the mid-2000s the "deleted years" of music?". AV Club. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ Williams, Sophie (2023-03-01). "'The New Rock Revolution' – what happened next?". NME. Retrieved 2025-07-20.
- ^ Baines, Josh (2017-11-28). "Mash-Ups, Bad Haircuts, the New Rock Revolution: 2002 Was a Load of Shit". VICE. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
- ^ Blog, N. M. E. (2013-01-22). "The Roots Of... The Libertines". NME. Retrieved 2025-07-20.
- ^ Robinson, Peter (2009-01-17). "All killer no landfiller". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "How landfill indie swallowed guitar music in the mid-Noughties". The Independent. 2019-07-28. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Robinson, Peter (2009-01-17). "All killer no landfiller". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Landfill Indie: Digging Up the Rubbish Pile". UCC Express. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "7 things that were still a part of our lives when Arctic Monkeys released their debut album 10 years ago - BBC Music". www.bbc.co.uk. 2016-01-22. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Power, Ed (2024-01-12). "Bill Ryder-Jones is no landfill indie casualty". The i Paper. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Interviews, Clash Magazine Music News, Reviews &; Murray, Robin (2017-09-19). "No, The North Doesn't Just Listen To Landfill Indie". Clash Magazine Music News, Reviews & Interviews. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Peter Robinson on the death of landfill indie music". The Guardian. 17 January 2009.
- ^ M. Spitz, "The 'New Rock Revolution' fizzles", May 2010, Spin, vol. 26, no. 4, ISSN 0886-3032, p. 95.
- ^ "How landfill indie swallowed guitar music in the mid-Noughties". The Independent. 2019-07-28. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Boult, Adam (2016-04-06). "Which landfill indie band are you? #indieamnesty". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Joden, Jotaro (2025-01-07). "Is indie sleaze even indie anymore?". Culted. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Beaumont, Mark (2020-05-04). "Mark, My Words: from Britpop to 'landfill indie', the lockdown is forcing us to face our musical pasts". NME. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ Slone, Isabel (January 12, 2022). "The Return of Indie Sleaze Style". Harper's Bazaar. Archived from the original on August 7, 2022. Retrieved August 9, 2022.
- ^ Lynskey, Dorian (2012-01-16). "Indie rock's slow and painful death". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "The Top 15 Modern Landfill Indie Songs". Varsity Online. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ^ "Landfill indie remembered | Ben Sixsmith". The Critic Magazine. 2024-10-13. Retrieved 2025-07-08.