Mr. Weiner seems to be confusing two very different meanings of the word 'pop'. The first is simply 'popular' music, i.e. anything on the top forty. This might include anything from hip-hop, to rock or even country. But 'Pop' is also a more specific genre of music which is melodic and lyrical and developed from british invasion rock and earlier fifties-era ballads. Indie music often overlaps with the pop genre, especially with the increasing trend of twee pop and piano ballad singers like Regina Spector or Feist. In this sense indie music is often pop music and visa versa. On the other hand Indie is by definition what is outside or parallel to the main stream. It defines itself against what is popular. I first heard 'Fireflies' on central-Ohio's local alternative station CD 101. They played it because it fit exactly the type of style of other songs they air, but they quickly stopped playing it when it hit the top forties. The same thing happened with the band Kings of Leon. Conversely the station reclaims old top forty hits like 'Sex and Candy' and plays them perenially after they are no longer mainstream. Indie music can never be popular, but it often is Pop.

So, in other words, "indie" is exactly what its detractors have always claimed it to be, an artless shell game for status-conscious hipsters?

I think "artless shell game" is a gross mischaractirazation of whatever the indie music scene is. I also think it's sort of foolish to claim that indie strives to be the opposite of mainstream. Indie, to me, simply means bands that haven't yet reached the top 40/clear channel playlist level of success. Does anyone honestly believe that bands get together and perform and release albums in an effort to achieve mediocrity?

Bands and Artists want to at the very least, be appreciated for their work. Unfortunately, without being signed to a major label, and being marketable to the right sorts of people, artists will not be played on any major commercial radio stations. So "indie" is this lower tier of renown, a fame without being accused of "selling out". Artists may get some play on college or independent radio, may get their songs in a commercial for cell phones, may even get on a late night talk show, but typically, will not appeal to enough people to be deigned worthy of top 40 style fame.

The problem has nothing to do with "status-conscious hipsters" (and who isn't status-conscious in one way or another?). Hipsters are a symptom of the illness that is American Music. Will anyone stand here and claim that Lady Gaga is more talented musically than any "indie" band you care to mention? But when I turn on the radio, I'll probably hear at least two of her songs within an hour. Our radio waves have been hijacked by companies who don't care about anything but selling advertising minutes. If the FCC hadn't allowed the mass consolidation of media, this discussion would be moot, because talented bands with unconventional styles would at least have some chance to achieve major national success.

The thing I love most about the internet is that it allows me to hear music that I would never be exposed to without it. These days radio fails to entertain or inform me at all. The same music by the same acts, no human element, no risk taking. It's really sad. I still don't really understand what defines the hipster subculture, but I see no shame in rejecting entertainment that is foisted upon us by conglomerates who have managed to suck all the soul out of art.

I think "artless shell game" is a gross mischaractirazation of whatever the indie music scene is. I also think it's sort of foolish to claim that indie strives to be the opposite of mainstream. Indie, to me, simply means bands that haven't yet reached the top 40/clear channel playlist level of success.

And that's the fundamental problem with "indie" as a scene. It isn't an artistically coherent movement built around a shared aesthetic sensibility or a common set of beliefs and ideals. Rather, "indie" is, in effect, a social network of awkward kids in plaid and skinny jeans patting each other on the back for the presumed perspicacity they have shown by adopting bad (usually flavored with retro, irony or a phony art-school 'cool' ultimately derived from ur-indie losers like Sonic Youth) pop music as their sonic wallpaper of choice. Of course, the minute anyone outside of Williamsburg or Austin or Portland discovers an indie fave, the "indie" fanbase drops them like a bad habit, because, in the end, it is just a social status shell game. For all the sensitive art-fag pretensions of hipsters, they're not indie fans because of the genre's dubious artistic merits, they're indie fans because it allows them to feel like social pioneers and trendsetters, instead of the socially maladroit, substance abusing, marginally employed ex-band campers that they actually are.

Bands and Artists want to at the very least, be appreciated for their work. Unfortunately, without being signed to a major label, and being marketable to the right sorts of people, artists will not be played on any major commercial radio stations. So "indie" is this lower tier of renown, a fame without being accused of "selling out". Artists may get some play on college or independent radio, may get their songs in a commercial for cell phones, may even get on a late night talk show, but typically, will not appeal to enough people to be deigned worthy of top 40 style fame.

And, when they DO achieve that fame, their original fans try to pretend they never listened to them, because they've tied up their personal identities in being more "discerning" than the bros and trixies (and, ewww, ghetto black people) who drive records into the "Top 40." File under game, shell.

The problem has nothing to do with "status-conscious hipsters" (and who isn't status-conscious in one way or another?).

People who haven't invested their sense of self-worth in their lifestyle accessories? Healthy people seek social status and identity through actual accomplishments, fucking tools seek social status through the products with which they surround themselves (PBR is the new Burberry).

Hipsters are a symptom of the illness that is American Music. Will anyone stand here and claim that Lady Gaga is more talented musically than any "indie" band you care to mention

Of course not. But then again, only a retard would pretend that indie dance darlings like Ear Pwr are any more talented than Lady Gaga. The difference is that only one fanbase holds their darlings up as legitimate artists.

I don't really understand your righteous anger about the subject. I agree, a lot of "indie" folks were nerds or burnouts or losers from high school, who now have carved out their own social scene. Countercultures are created by groups who feel persecuted or rejected from the mainstream. I'm not trying to defend presumptuous assholes, or anyone who drinks PBR. All social groups include people who believe their self-worth is based on possessions and tastes. It's silly to claim that hipsters are the only people who judge others based on esoteric criteria. People who do that are assholes and phonies, no argument. People of a certain age strive to form their own scene, where they can be accepted and understood, to whatever degree they please. Raging against being young and insecure is fruitless. You can't argue with a cultural fact.

Mostly I was trying to say that enjoying "indie" music isn't a crime, just a matter of taste. I believe that talented bands, whether or not they're derrived from 70s era rock or pyschedelic pop or whatever, exist outside the mainstream, and these bands aren't given a chance to become as successful as the garbage that gets radio play.

I've never heard of Ear Pwr in my life. With 150,000 myspace views, it's a bit of a stretch to call them "indie dance darlings". I can't really see anyone holding them up as legitimate artists either, just a bunch of kids that like dancing and having fun and being goofy. That's the real problem with these hipster/scenester/indie labels, they don't really mean shit, or rather they mean too much shit.

I think it's a safe assumption that some people dress hip and listen to hip bands because they actually enjoy doing so. For my piece, when bands I've liked for a while get even a little bit of fame, I'm thrilled. A couple years ago I played Ratatat for my nephews, and a group of their friends, who would doubtless be identified as "bros and trixies," they loved it, and I couldn't have been happier. Every time I see the IBM commercial with a Starfucker song, I turn it up loud. Good bands deserve to get paid.

You are condemning people you don't know based on their taste in music and attire, which is what you complain about hipsters doing. What's the difference? You only give credence to judgmental cocks by hating them so much. Is everyone in skinny jeans and flannel a pretentious douchebag who listens to trashy dance pop and art rock? You're painting with all-too-broad strokes.

I don't really understand your righteous anger about the subject. I agree, a lot of "indie" folks were nerds or burnouts or losers from high school, who now have carved out their own social scene.

You're almost right, but the tense is wrong. They still are, for the most part, "burnouts" and "losers" who have glommed on to existing social scenes (to the point of essentially driving out the people who actually did carve out those scenes to begin with). Like the music they support, these scenes have become about the appearance of independence, rather than the reality of it.

Countercultures are created by groups who feel persecuted or rejected from the mainstream. I'm not trying to defend presumptuous assholes, or anyone who drinks PBR. All social groups include people who believe their self-worth is based on possessions and tastes.

But contemporary indie/hipster culture is almost entirely defined by its status markers, albeit in an inverted version of the traditional mainstream obsession with popularity, these status markers are constantly in flux in a race to the bottom (exclusivity through obscurity). I repeat yet again: shell game.

It's silly to claim that hipsters are the only people who judge others based on esoteric criteria.

No one has claimed otherwise.

People who do that are assholes and phonies, no argument. People of a certain age strive to form their own scene, where they can be accepted and understood, to whatever degree they please. Raging against being young and insecure is fruitless. You can't argue with a cultural fact.

No one is against being "young and insecure," I just question the practice of deifying that state as if it were culturally revelatory.

Mostly I was trying to say that enjoying "indie" music isn't a crime, just a matter of taste. I believe that talented bands, whether or not they're derrived from 70s era rock or pyschedelic pop or whatever, exist outside the mainstream, and these bands aren't given a chance to become as successful as the garbage that gets radio play.

I think you'd have a really hard time arguing that most indie actually sits outside the "mainstream" in any sense but a narrow count of units moved: most of it amounts to little more than tarted up expressions of styles already well-known to the mainstream.

I've never heard of Ear Pwr in my life. With 150,000 myspace views, it's a bit of a stretch to call them "indie dance darlings".

But that's just the indie shell game in action, isn't it? You're only the scene "darlings" until someone has heard of you.

I can't really see anyone holding them up as legitimate artists either, just a bunch of kids that like dancing and having fun and being goofy. That's the real problem with these hipster/scenester/indie labels, they don't really mean shit, or rather they mean too much shit.

But that's sort of the point: there's no real difference between the "indie" artists you put on the pedestal and the "mainstream" artists you deride as soulless money whores. Take album sales out of the equation, and there's nothing really to choose from between Lady Gaga and her indie dance equivalents, and, for all the lit-major pretentiousness adopted by the Decemberists, they're still a lot closer to Coldplay than to the artists they clearly would like to be compared to. Shell. Game.

You are condemning people you don't know based on their taste in music and attire, which is what you complain about hipsters doing. What's the difference?

For starters, I'm not claiming that my views are original or fetishizing my tastes as if they were some grand morality play being acted out against a backdrop of evil corporations out to crush art.

You only give credence to judgmental cocks by hating them so much. Is everyone in skinny jeans and flannel a pretentious douchebag who listens to trashy dance pop and art rock?

When I meet one who isn't, I'll let you know.