I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the ways that social media have enabled even the smallest bands to create incredibly wide audiences with little-to-no startup capital.  And this excellent post by Marko over at echo has all but confirmed it: there are no indie bands anymore.

Ok, ok, I know, the term indie has essentially lost all its meaning, but let’s look at it piece by piece.  Once upon a time, there were bands who started playing in their garage, played a couple gigs, built a small fanbase, etc.  After enough time, these bands started touring, building a bigger fanbase, and maybe, eventually, they made a recording and released it through an independent record label.  These bands were indie.

Now let’s ignore for a moment that most of the labels that we think of as independent are far from it, given their complete reliance on the majors for distribution.  I realize that this fact alone essentially proves that there are no indie bands anymore.

That’s completely missing the point: the reason there are no indie bands is because there is no need to be indie anymore.

What exactly does this mean?

• The romantic notion of a band that no one else has heard of has disappeared.  I promise that if you find a band that you think has never been heard, they’ve already put their stuff on MySpace and at least a few hundred people have heard it.  While this isn’t exactly the same as going platinum, the appeal to the indie music fan of being the only kid on the block own that record is gone.
• Bands don’t need labels, not even indie labels.  I’m going out on a limb here, of course, since the fact remains that most bands don’t have the wherewithall to produce, market, and sell their own recordings.  But if bands decided to devote even a small amount of time to building a community of fans through various social media, they can easily turn their passion into a career.  As Marko points out, nobody sets out to be small, but hard work and dedication almost always pay off.
• There are people that will do this stuff for free.  They are called fans.  Most bands completely overlook the power of their fans to motivate others.  They can do this through any number of ways: sharing content, sending emails/IM/SMS/Twitter/etc., putting your band’s stickers on everything they see, wearing t-shirts, you name it.  Fans love to do this stuff.  Why?  Because it makes them feel connected to the music that they love.
• The flipside of the previous point is that fans will NOT help you to market yourself if you FAIL to connect with them.  This idea has been stressed time and time again by every social media guru on the planet.  If you fail to engage then you fail to inspire. Fans want to feel as though the bands they love actually care about them.  They need to feel, for lack of a better term, loved.  And this holds true for every community of fans, not just bands.  Take a look at Target, or Virgin America, or, hell, Coca-Cola…. all of them connect directly with their fans, and it pays off in dividends.
• This stuff is not as hard as it sounds; the hardest part is making good music.  There’s really no other way to say this, but if your music sucks, then you can’t expect anyone to listen.  Sure, there’s something out there for everyone, and every band will have a group of devoted fans.  But if you really want your music career to take off, you have to start with the basics.

There really is no reason why a band should ever be without a fanbase.  Given the incredible wealth of resources at our disposal, every musician should be able to connect directly to the people who matter most, the fans.  And I suppose in this sense, my original premise is no longer valid.  There are no indie labels anymore, and therefore no indie bands.  And the stratification and categorization of indie v. major really doesn’t make much difference. Really, this just means that every band – from the high-school punk rockers to major-label hip-hop superstars – are as independent as we’ve seen in the history of music.  Because now it isn’t the labels that sell the music, it’s the artist engaging their fans on an unprecedented personal level.