The next new thing.....

[tate]

I stand by the US vs UK indie point. UK indie=MOR mainstream, boring and banal. US Indie= dreck like The Decemberists who are worse than any Coldplay or Snow Patrol.

I would draw a line between the US Indie scene and the "underground"/hipster scene that produces acts like Gang Gang Dance. I'll admit that its a fuzzy one, but no more so than that in the UK.

Sorry, but this all sounds like a third-rate music journo trafficking in meaningless generalizations. You make claims about “scenes” in the US, but I can only wonder how much experience you have had *in* any of them (stateside) -- guitar & drum, dance, hip-hop, experimental/noise, or other. My impression is "none," but in any case, the distinction between a monolithic "US Indie scene" and an "underground/hipster scene" is totally meaningless, it describes no (stateside) musical reality whatsoever.

Though I must say, it's the nationalistic inflection that I find the strangest - the whole "Dude, my UK indie is better than US indie" approach . . . if there were a more boring way of talking about an already boring category of music, then I can't imagine what it would be.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

Though I must say, it's the nationalistic inflection that I find the strangest - the whole "Dude, my UK indie is better than US indie" approach . . . if there were a more boring way of talking about an already boring category of music, then I can't imagine what it would be.

The US is generally far more regionalized than the UK, due to physical size and the way it's media works. Talking about any scene in terms of the entire country is bound to be a poor generalization. Reports of rave's progress in the US were often confusing because UK commentators tried to summarize it nationally, whereas the reality was that some areas would have really healthy scenes almost on a par with the UKs while other areas would have no rave at all.

Americans are famously prepared to travel what seem like vast distances to europeans when they go out - driving for 4 or 5 hours to go to a gig or a club isnt unusual. So when people talk about city based scenes in the US (Seattle, Austin, Miami) the actual catchment area is often equivilent in size to the whole UK.