Indie Music Genre

Indie music traditionally is music produced under an independent music label without backing from major companies. However, nowadays the indie

genre is mostly used to describe music that is usually singer/songwriters and acoustic sounds.

Image• The image of those featured in the indie genre are

often seen to be wearing things often fairly simple and nothing over the top, however they do often put their own twist on things to make themselves away from the ‘norm’ some how.

Lana Del Rey Jake Bugg

Setting

• The settings for indie music videos are often low budget places, sometimes streets and unused land.

Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent Adolescent The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

Mis-En-Scene

• Quite a lot of props seen in Indie genre music videos tends to be instruments. This is because indie is mostly popular because its usually stripped back to ‘proper’ music rather then anything added electronically. Other props seen tend to be cigarettes and alcohol.

George Ezra - Blame It On Me Jake Bugg - Seen It All

Performance

• Most Indie music videos often feature a performance from the artists. This tends to be as the indie genre focuses a lot on the instruments and voice of the stars rather than using other aspects to sell the song.

Paolo Nutini - Candy Passenger – Let Her Go

Narrative

• A lot of indie videos have a narrative, mostly of love stories or troubled lives. However there is often other examples such as the infamous ‘Secrets’ video where member of the public confessed their secrets for ‘The All-American Rejects’ video.

All-American Rejects – Dirty Little Secret Ed Sheeran – The A Team

Cinematography

The 1975 - Girls

• Cinematography for indie music videos often features a lot of close ups, particularly of the instruments, however there is also often long and wide shots, mainly showing a location either in an urban setting or often a natural location.

Coldplay – Every Tear Is a Waterfall Coldplay - Yellow

Editing• Editing in the indie genre depends on the pace

of the song as some can often be quite slow, but those on the more indie rock side can have quicker pace for them. However virtually all are still edited on some sort of beat or change in the instruments of the song. There are however some examples of music videos that have no cuts, such as OKGO.

OK Go – Here It Goes Again The 1975 – Settle Down