not so much indie rock, but Julian Cope's Japrocksampler is well worth a read if you ever find yourself the slightest bit interested in the history of japanese psychedelic music...and let's face it, most people go through a Jap-psych phase at some point in their lives.

i'm trying to hunt down his Krautrocksampler, which looks at German experimental music. I imagine that's worth reading too.

Let me do it. :D

In the 90's Spin Magazine published 100 most influential alternative records. In the book a brief bio is written & makes an informative review of both well known artists & some lesser known indie / underground artists.

Glad I could help - I truly did enjoy reading This Could Be Your Life, despite growing up in the 80's & being aware of a lot of the bands it made things click & better understand how the music started & how it led to indie rock.

I think I'd point out also that "indie rock" was never a movement at all - not in any homogeneous sense anyway. "Indie" is really just the term that came to replace "alternative" after the latter began to be applied to every post-grunge idiot's band and his dog, and indeed, most oddly, every other mainstream commercial rock band since. Alternative rock, originally, referred to real *alternative* rock bands of all sorts of the 1980s ranging from New Wave/Post-Punk, the neo-folk rock of R.E.M., the "College Rock" of Pixies and Dinosaur Jr, the "grunge rock" of Green River, the American Underground noise rock of Sonic Youth, and so forth. Pretty sonically diverse, and I don't think those bands saw themselves as part of any one single movement.

It is true though that "indie" is now perceived, even by those who listen to that sort of music, as being a sort of single homogeneous community with pretty similar stock tastes. But as a real evolving movement, it really cannot be thus described.

Great point. "Indie" replaced "alternative" when the mainstream hijacked the term for themselves.

And now "indie" is being hijacked by commercial marketing. UK bands like The Hoosiers (RCA, Sony) are being called "indie", although they were never ever indie and weren't even HEARD OF by the indie community when they first emerged.

There will be truckloads of other manufactured "indie" bands to hit the airwaves in the future. But there will always be an underground movement of music whatever it is called or labeled.

Speaking of which, I guess that's ONE word that can't ever be hijacked. Not in the sense of calling yourself an "underground" band anyway.

You never know....

Now?

They were doing that 18 years ago with Blur