Often times we meet and converse with people and the topic arises. Well, what do you do? Most times our reply is, we're independent recording artists. Then it goes like this, well what is an independent recording artist? Well we record, promote, perform and sell music but we're not affiliated with a major record label. In other words, if you are a recording artist not signed to a major that makes you Indie. Believe it or not the average music listener is not aware indie music exist. They simply hear their music on commercial radio or TV or don't hear it at all.
Yes, there is some good music on mainstream radio (terrestrial radio). The problem is song rotation. There are only so many slots available in one hour intervals and these slots are dominated by major record labels.
So if you as a listener are looking for the real nitty gritty, start checking out the indies (short for independent). There's indie radio, mostly Internet and college stations, indie brick and mortar (industry term for actual building) radio exist as well, although these are usually smaller stations with shows airing at odd hours. It's still great listening. The vast majority of recording artists being played are indie. Indie radio playing indie music that needs to be heard. This makes sense.
Not only do you have indie radio and indie recording artists. There are also indie record stores both Internet and brick and mortar (Sound of Market - Market East - Philadelphia, PA). Oh yeah, and indie music magazines, blog sites, music venues, video TV channels, etc. Indie exist in every genre of music you can imagine.
Many indie music artists at one time or another were major label artists. Just because a recording artist is not on a major label being played on commercial radio 24 times a day doesn't mean they can't express themselves. As a indie artist you may have never been on a major recording label at all. This doesn't mean the artist is incapable of making great music.
We're simply saying commercial radio is limited and is not the end all to good music. Just because it's not in the top twenty rotation does not mean its not good or great music. This is why the Indie music community exist and is needed.
So if you think you're cool because you hip to all that's being played in that commercial rotation, think again. What's really hip is exposing yourself to the underground scene. Whatever your cup of tea, soul, r&b, jazz, hip hop, funk, rock n roll, gospel, punk, reggae, country, classical or whatever. There is more dope music out there than you can ever imagine.
So if this brief bit of information on indie music has sparked your curiosity, we hope you will tell others and begin to support indie music. Of course we could go on forever about the many facets of the indie music community, maybe we'll explore this more in the future.