It has been a relaxing week at Self Help Radio HQ, since I've just been listening to songs by bands in alphabetical order that I already know & like, & then deciding which ones to play on the radio. I do this (never-going-to-be-finished) indiepop a to z project every four months, give or take, & I am required (by me, mostly) to write something about it, & there's very little I haven't said.
Perhaps the saddest thing, to me, is that it's a kind of sound that seems to be on the wane. Saying that, I am already aware that I might just not be looking for it as diligently as I used to, or that the stuff that my radio station gets (which I try to keep up with) is from bigger labels, so the indiepop that makes it through is the exception, not the rule. But I confess I don't even know which labels I should be watching these days. Am I asking for help? Maybe!
My bad. I just went to a couple of labels' sites & saw there was tons of stuff I could be looking at/listening to/buying. Of course I haven't listened to it, I was just looking - what if the stuff on these labels has changed? These small labels are run by people, not corporations, & sometimes peoples' tastes change. So why can't a person running a label decide they want to change from indiepop to electronica? Not such a stretch.
Most tragic to me is when labels had a personality - I'm thinking of some from the 1980s, mainly - & then they got bought up by a corporation & just start releasing stuff to make money. Some diversify, & that dilutes the sound; others just plain sell out. I'm not mentioning specific labels here because of two reasons: a) I may be talking out of my ass (see above); & 2) I don't want to start an argument. Everything on the internet is about taking sides, & I'm a terrible partisan.
What to talk about, when I talk about indiepop now? I wish I knew!
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