Independent music
Independent [ ˌ ɪndɪpendənt ] (English " independent" for ), short indie, is a collective term for creative expressions, which are characterized by independence movements against the culture industry, where there is a large bandwidth. It extends into all areas of post-modern art and pop culture, so above all the music, film, literature, games, or fashion and is now partly used as a synonym for the Underground.
Economic level
" Independent" is the opinion of its representatives for the independence of the globalized corporations of the market, in popular music as the major labels or movie companies in Hollywood. Their fixation on mass success and maximum sales in the world market provoked without special attention artistic quality and integrity over the past decades repeatedly alternative movements. In general, the Independent is interpreted as a critical attitude, questioned the social and political processes. In popular music but has, since the early 1990s under the designation of alternative sub-labels of large corporations on the market ( see independent label ) as a co-opted form of this aesthetic. The interpretation of the term has been the subject of numerous top of judgments in recent times. Thereafter, the term includes all genres. The Independents also apply if they are used as sales multiplier.
The term Independent in relation to music was always more referred to in the last 20 years as a genre (see below), which says musicians are meant, which market their recordings or live acts independently of record labels themselves. The musicians are relatively unknown to the general rule and have an audience of a few dozen to a few thousand people. The Internet has the independent musicians to distribute their music greatly simplified, so that many musicians can even offer their work free to download. In recent time many community sites such as Last.fm or MySpace that can offer musicians new label independent distribution channels.
Musical plane
On a musical level is " Independent" for the general trend since the 1980s, on the basis of punk, psychedelic rock, industrial or New Wave to expand the expressive possibilities of the pop and (mostly ) rock area steadily.
It's about an aesthetic differentiation from the musical mainstream, although the bands can be well represented at major labels today - emerged, however, the Independent movement is beyond the major labels. For major labels these sounds were originally too daring, too critical, not suitable for mass production enough and therefore not financially viable. Often, however, they did not even know about their existence.
Since the 1980s, Independent is referred to as a term for music outside the mainstream as an alternative and is applied across on lines such as punk, industrial, avant-garde, wave, gothic rock, noise rock, shoegazing, IDM, Electro or Madchester Rave. In a narrower sense, generally refers to a rock -oriented, eclectic mixed with other styles music form (see indie rock ).
Computer game area
Independent game developers are game developers that typically develop smaller computer games, so-called indie games, since they work normally without financial support and dependence on other companies / publishers. Most stuck only individuals or small interest groups behind the games, sometimes about crowdfunding larger games enthusiasts groups (eg via the Kickstarter platform). The indie games rely mostly on marketing innovative but technically risky game concepts, an approach that tends to be avoided in larger, publisher -funded games. Indie developers can be seen by playing so well in response to the forced by publishers for better marketability to the broadest possible customer segments trend towards casual games and " streamlining". To keep the cost price and therefore the financial risk for the small developers as low as possible, the developer does not usually rely on digital distribution, selling on online platforms on the Internet by downloads ( Digital Distribution ) in the account for the physical distribution costs. The number of indie developers have in common with the indie games until the end of the first decade of the 21st century greatly increased by the increasingly diverse possibilities of digital distribution, such as by Steam or the Humble Indie Bundle. While indie games due to the open development platform, the PC have their origin in the computer field, much later, that market was the developers available in-game console area. For example, the game console manufacturers Microsoft has with its online platform Xbox Live 's own market in 2005 thus opened by an extra software tool was made available to developers. Some indie developer studios were already developing commercially very successful games such as the game Minecraft.