In both its positive and negative aspects. Legit open-ended question. Discuss.
Modest Mouse signing to Sony, Pavement gives up.
in the early 2000s, everything was classified by us as some type of -core, which was the last attempt at really breaking down indie music into discrete genres. Along with that, the need to seek out lesser known acts on your own by actually going to places to see bands play started to die out and anybody could get into anything via the internet and probably buy the appropriate clothes online too. The cultural value of music just started to plummet as more people did this...this happened to lots of things though, art in general.
The "anyone can access anything " aspect lead to mass nihilism or superficiality, not sure which, but whatever it was, it enabled corporate ad teams to co-opt any style they wanted. So you've got a corporation selling something co-opted to a person who found their image online, without having to put any effort into it. The modern listener/consumer in a feedback loop with various brands. The musician is a dumb, irrelevant hipster until they make it and DIY is all about doing your own marketing for yourself.
basically, as people who were late teens/20s around 2000 grew up, they took whatever was indie around that time with them and began marketing it more heavily in 2010s, while somehow the late 90s/2000s hipsters who produced the actual work (artists moving into run down neighborhoods, not the modern "whatever I hate that's different from me" usage) got a bit demonized, despite being the original heart of the operation. And now technology lets anybody create or hear any kind of sound, so anybody can make any kind of sound and the origin and motivations don't really factor in at all. With listener separated from artist, anyone can come in and be a middle man, but they know how to dress and act like the consumer too.
i'm tired and you asked too big of a question and i think i just figured out that some of my friends are assholes
