Soul seems to be making a huge comeback. The sound has been redubbed, quite originally, indie retro soul. Over the weekend I was listening to a local radio station, WFNX, and heard a song that sounded all too familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Which in retrospect makes sense because I hadn’t heard it before. It turns out it was by Fitz & The Tanrums and just came out last month. Here it is:
And then last night I was listening to music with some classmates, and a friend put on some new soul music. I was positive that, he too had just discovered Fitz & The Tantrums. Nope. It was Eli “The Paperboy” Reed, who happens to be from Boston, and just released this last year:
There is nothing original about either of these bands. But who cares? I welcome their music into my library.
On a side note, I find it amusing that these days, any mainstream music that can’t be characterized as rock, hip-hop, rap, or pop, ends up with the “indie” label. To me, whether accurate or not, indie used to mean stuff like Bright Eyes, Spoon, and the Arcade Fire. “Indie” is short for independent, and was coined for bands that didn’t have mainstream record labels, usually because their music was unique enough to not appeal to mainstream crowds.
Now it seems to be a catch all for anything that stands out. And the lines are all blurred.
Complete retro soul music rip off? Sure. Let’s call it indie and put it on alternative rock stations. It’s catchy, people are going to love it, but they might not give it a chance if it’s called something else.
The Black Keys decide to put out an awesome blues-rock album. Blues-rock doesn’t sell though. Indie does. Who cares if they’re on a Warner Brothers label. Close enough to being independent.
And then just the other night, The Arcade Fire won best alternative album of the year at the Grammy’s for ‘The Suburbs’. It was very well deserved. And they are on an independent label. But I don’t think anyone can argue that they aren’t mainstream at this point.
I have no particular motive or point to make here. And I don’t judge bands by their labels. I just think we may need some new words to describe music.