Indie rockers give themselves absolute freedom to experiment with sound, emotion, and lyrics. This is fundamentally different from the methods of record companies, which focus primarily on the mainstream and take audience tastes into account when creating a product.
Since the early 1990s, rock music has dominated Cardiff's music scene, with later trends shifting towards more extreme styles of the genre, such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby Newport music scene, has attracted a number of musicians to perform or launch their careers in South Wales.
Famous rock bands include Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, and Stereophonics from the Cool Cymru era, as well as Feeder, Kids in Glass Houses, and Funeral for a Friend, McLusky, The Loves, Los Campesinos today.
Strictly speaking, indie rock is not a specific genre, but a generalizing concept. Indie includes garage rock, postpunk, and retro rock. It is an amalgamation of many genres, but they have constant commonalities. DIY, or do-it-yourself culture. It is common among independent rock bands to record their own albums, so their records are often not as polished as studio records.
Rejection of the mainstream. Indie bands don't want to make popular music; they value individuality and freedom of expression. Experimental. This is music that mixes different styles, instruments, and moods. Musicians are not afraid to try new things and do what no one has done before.
Indie-rock was born long before the term itself appeared. It finally took shape in the 1980s. At that time indie-rock meant freedom of creativity and the desire to go against the rules. Indie-rock was mostly referred to by the underground, which ignored mass art. Everything changed by the mid-90s, when the cult band Nirvana became famous in their homeland, and then all over the world. Major labels became interested in independent rock bands, and they gradually began to enter the world market. Other musicians began to copy the style of successful indie rockers like Blur or Pulp. From that moment on, the prefix indie was added not only to underground bands but to everyone whose sound was similar to them.
Joy Division is the most famous indie band in the world. They were at the origins of the emergence of indie rock, to this day many bands imitate their style. Without Joy Division hundreds of modern rock bands would not have appeared. R.E.M. - their songs were played on most student radio stations. They were the ones who influenced the perception of independent music in the 80s. They showed the world what is grunge and garage rock. Nirvana and many bands of the 90s owe their success to R.E.M. Sonic Youth is the band that helped musicians stop being afraid to try new things. Sonic Youth gave the world the gift of experimentation with sound and mixing styles. In their songs, the aesthetics of noise-rock merges with unusual art-rock and melodic post-punk.
Radiohead has gained a reputation as the most depressing band. Their songs are indeed imbued with longing and despondency, but they made a great contribution to the development of indie rock. Radiohead showed that independent rock is more than music. It's also the independence of personal views: not playing in countries whose political regime is questionable, not accepting invitations to festivals that don't care about the environment. It is also one of the first popular bands to ditch the label and promote their music on their own website. The Smiths were an iconic rock band of the '80s. They played music at a cross between vintage '60s rock and postpunk at a time when people were expecting danceable hits. Although the band's songs raise difficult topics, they are full of humor and irony.