About Last Nite...

If you can remember the “indie sleaze” era, you probably weren’t really there. For teenagers in the early 00’s, this was a time of debauchery and heavy eyeliner; congested clubs and cheap converse; dodgy self-portraits taken in front of grubby mirrors, and the loud, gritty, Do-It-Yourself sounds of indie music.

Although it’s widely considered that The Strokes kicked things off with their debut album, Is This It? at the start of the new millennium, for some, the entrance into the sonic sleaze rabbit hole may have been the mosquito-like melodies of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s or the bloghaus, electronic undercurrents of Uffie and MGMT. But whatever sounds one lost themselves in amongst the halls of local American Apparel and dingy venues, the decadence of this era in music was one that was loved by all those who were fortunate enough to be a part of it and longed for by those who were sadly born one generation too late.

Luckily, for the latter, indie is back — and better than ever. Artists who were pivotal in the early to mid aughts music scene, such as The Arctic Monkeys, Paramore, LCD Soundsystem, Santigold and M.I.A, just to name a few, have all released new music this year. Meanwhile their spiky, maximalist influences can be heard in the discographies of newer acts such as Beabadoobee, Arca, Static Dress, Black Midi, and pretty much any trending mashup audio on TikTok.

Indie music, today, is ubiquitous and accessible, just as it was when it began. With the increasing presence of the internet and platforms like MySpace, indie music quickly became something anyone with a spare guitar or mic lying around could make without a major record label. The unsaturation of social media and humble mp3 accelerated musical creativity beyond boundaries and gave birth to some of the most celebrated anthems and artists in music history.

Music, and more importantly making it, suddenly became very accessible and therefore ungoverned. There were no sketchy contracts or middlemen to abide by. It was DIY to the max. Punk clashed with electronic; pop intersected with rock, and suddenly being in a band with your friends was cool again. Sampling television commercials, purposely leaving in raw studio audio in the final track and intentionally “bad” production became the new abnormal. It was reckless, hedonistic and imperfect, as all things should be.

Now, being the chaotic, rebellious culture movement that it was, indie’s post-pandemic timed comeback makes a lot of sense. After years of being confined and told what to do and what not to do (which, in fairness, was for the safety of both ourselves and others), people wanted to be free from restrictions and selflessly indulge without judgment — which is exactly what indie offered them.

Maybe it was all the eye-straining zoom classes or increasingly concerning weekly screen time updates, but people began to yearn for real, raw human connection again. The very kind that drove the indie sleaze movement from the biggest headliner-stacked festivals to the smallest of pubs and secret speakeasies. That sense of optimism and fearlessness, where nothing seemed to matter except what song was next, has seemingly found its way back into our generation’s sphere and it could not have come at a better time.

Amidst all the alcohol, heavy eyeliner and self-indulgence that, more often than not, went hand in hand with the indie music scene, it’s easy to misunderstand the appeal of this time in music as simply an outlet for teenage rebellion. And make no mistake, it absolutely was, but to water down the charm of this era to simply its aesthetics would be doing a disservice to all the art, music and community-driven culture born out of it.x

28 GLITCH incite