Boards

I'd guess that Fleet Foxes will be the band to make most year-end lists. As Stuzza says, the genuine mainstream indie acts can't be doing badly if Kasabian have moved up to the O2 as their London venue for this tour. I think it's easy to forget that critical reception on music sites and blogs does not equal wider recognition in terms of sales or even illegal downloads, we (people who read DiS/blogs/etc) are still very much a minority of the music-consuming public. If anything, when one of 'our' bands (horrid phrase, I know) does have mainstream success it's usually one that appeals to the average middle class Guardian reader (Fleet Foxes, The National, Arcade Fire), who I think are one of the few demographics still buying CDs. I did think that Wild Beasts might have made that leap this year, but I found the album almost entirely unremarkable, to be honest. By the same token, the vast majority of people probably have very little idea who most of the electronic bands/artists even are.

For what it's worth, genuinely good 'indie' albums of 2011:
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's Getting Older
Braids - Native Speaker
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine
Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
Wilco - The Whole Love

i'd say that 'electronic' has easily edged into pole position.

fine by me. (especially if the added bonus is that the seemingly endless stream of supermarket indie is gonna be subdued for at least a few years to come.)

But if you were to create a related best of 2011 thread...it wouldn't be half as interesting as the electronic one. I am implying that indie rock records have less tendency to creep up on people, giving less potential for recommendations from those in the underground circle, hence creating the impression of an uninteresting scene. Nonetheless, Antlers, St vincent, Kurt Vile, Atlas Sound, Destroyer...will all be in around the best of 2011 overall lists.

mightn't you, in that kind of way, if you like saying such things.

And you might note that there are still really hugely successful bands that "we" all hate but which might be considered "indie" by some people, like Coldplay and Snow Patrol.

And Kasabian are playing the O2 at NYE so they're obviously doing alright.

And there have been pretty good showings by Noah and the Whale and Metronomy (as you said) and Noel Gallagher (arguably) and the Vaccines are doing okay. And the Wombats still get a ton of radio play. I am constantly amazed how bands like Noah are playing the Royal Albert Hall - they don't seem big enough to me but I guess actually they are.

I sort of know what you mean but it would be a push to think that suddenly everything's gone electronic and not indie. And at least half of your tumblr top ten are "indie"... and the term could be used to include bands like Radiohead who are bridging the two camps...

And anyway add War on Drugs to the list of amazing "indie" albums of the year please.

are popular for a bit, then gradually stop being popular (for a bit) whilst a different type of music becomes popular for a bit. Thanks for drawing our attention to this sean, preesh.

the only decent "British band pretending to be Pavement" album in ages, even their faux American accents and "we're such slackers, dude" shtick didn't put me off the ace tunes.

to the point where I'll forgive the rest of the record for not quite living up to expectations? Do people here not like it because it has very straight forward lyrics? Kinda polished and dreamy production compared to anything from Primary Colours?

sorry, some weird bug with the site today.

but no. Although to be fair, there hasn't been a good year for 'indie rock' in about a decade.

a few i've liked well enough, namely chad van gaalen, asobi seksu, beirut, tune-yards, cymbals eat guitars and antlers, a few really great up and comers like tiger waves, stray kites and new animal. i'd say Future islands is really solid and loving Bronze, Skeletons, Emperor X and Roommate. So there are good things out there, they are just somewhat overshadowed by a great year of electronic music.

I found some good/new bands.
WU LYF
Still Corners
Widowspeak
Snowmine
The Rural Alberta Advantage
Wye Oak
...
But I also believe that the world urgently needs a new The Shins album.

C'mon! If they didn't step it up a level, it's cos' Two Dancers was so good. I am unable to be anywhere close to objective after falling in love with them again in Bristol on Saturday, but my God does Smother sound good right now.
That apart, Beirut has really grown on me, and I think the LC! record will probably be quite successful.

but i would propose that the tastemakers (Pitchfork, not DiS lol) are not as interested in it at the moment, so fewer "big" releases and more of an emphasis on other musics

that it's much the same as any of the last few years for indie. Nothing much to latch on to at all. Part of which is just that what is coming out of the indie area of music is bland, mushy stuff aimed at the Radio 6 listener type, even when it's meant to be rocky like Wavves. And that's becoming more pronounced as pitchfork's staff get older and blander. Indie's in dire need of a bit of roughness and energy getting put back into its DNA.

seems to be either minimalistic stuff a la XX, Warpaint etc, or beard music a la FF, Bon Iver etc. It isn't as though mainstream indie has disappeared per se, but it certainly does seem to have got quieter.

I guess that would qualify as "indie" and it sits proudly in my Top 5 albums ofd this year alongside The Horrors, Wild Beasts, Craft Spells and Wu Lyf. Also The Dears record was a definite return to form I thought after a couple of poor efforts.

I guess it comes down to what people want/expect from or define as "Indie". I don't think it's been a bad year, although as far as mainstream/radio friendly "indie" goes it probably has...

thought All Eternals Deck was totally ace

I think the last great "indie" record was "Whatever People Say i am...". I wouldn't class bands like The Horrors or Wild Beasts indie especially. In fact I'd say they wer eboth more pop bands these days. And I thought both "Skying" and "Smother" were fantastic records (I don't think WB will ever make a better record than "Two dancers", but "Skying" was certainly the horrors' best to date).

But yeah I'd largely agree with you. The Atlers' certainly disappointed me with their latest, although that Wu Lyf record was probably the best "indie rock" record I've heard all year. Those are the only two "indie" records I guess I've really enjoyed though. I think a lot depends on what you class as indie though. The genre has become incredily blurred in recent years.

As well as the others listed above, with special shout outs to Artics, Girls and The Dears, I'd like to add to the list of indie records I've loved this year by Yuck, White Denim, Smith Westerns, Black Lips, Slow Club, Little Comets, My Morning Jacket, Frankie & The Heartstrings, Male Bonding and Joy Formidable.

Although, if you'd asked me before I'd checked my phone I would have told you that there were no decent indie records I'd heard this year and all I'd listened to was electronics and hip-hops.

I liked Arctic Monkeys' album, just like the rest of their stuff. Alex Turner's EP was exceptional.

On the whole, indie rock sucked this year. Then again, I think lots of genre's took a hit this year. Take hip-hop for example. It's not like anything as brilliant as Madvillainy or Boy in the Corner came out or even a very good album, though not a classic, like My Beautiful Dark Twisted.

Though comparing this year's high points to last year's high points in rock n'roll, there is simply no comparison. Diamond Eyes, Contra, High Violet just to name a few.

I've loved loads of records this year, that's all that really matters to me.

you're underplaying the Vaccines - not only did they get lots of screen time on the Glastonbury and Reading coverage but their album was released in March and didn't leave the top 75 til October, and they're about to put out a *sixth* single from it. Also the Horrors are still building on what they can achieve, they seem to have spent the year touring slightly bigger venues each time and I reckon it might even be the NME album of the year for whatever that's worth.

But I don't think you can tell a genre trajectory from online hip press any more. Three or four years ago you wouldn't get this playing off of Drake between commercial potential (number five, that album is at, and that can't just be because Rihanna's on one track) and blog credibility, and The Weeknd just wouldn't have happened because there was no call for R&B for people who didn't think they liked R&B. What's happened isn't so much a slow burial of indie rock as everything else being subsumed into the spaces it used to rule.

(Oh yeah, and the Nicola Roberts album was an absolute commercial failure - charted at 17, out within a fortnight. But Joe Mount produced two tracks! Yes, and so did two members of Orson)

/ NME types. come the end of the year and they're doing 2 x dates at the (2,000 capacity) Manchester Academy. but last time i started a thread about The Vaccines sean accused me of being from their 'street team' so less said the better. but i still like them!

we would have had a few Razorlight or Kasabian hits dominating the charts (shoot the runner, america, golden touch, etc), even, i dunno, The Caesars in 2002/3, but yeah, there has been a MASSIVE lack of that this year. name one hit that you could file next to those tracks.

But aren't music invested students clambering all over experimental elecronic music around this time?