Does indie mean independence? Freedom and restraint in a late 1990s US college radio community

Abstract

This article investigates the role that one non-commercial college radio station in the Los Angeles area played in the broader music community during the late 1990s, when formerly alternative rock music was getting played on commercial radio. By instituting a radical indie (independent of corporate control) only policy for rock-related music being added to the station, this radio station defined itself even more strongly as an oppositional practice against commercial radio. At the same time, the definition of indie was being contested as both an aesthetic and economic term, both at the station and within the broader music industry. Based on participant observation and interviews, this article interrogates this station's radical indie music policies, uncovering the challenges faced when an organisation has rules based on contested terminology. Although the radio station's formatting rules were designed to foster a spirit of independence from the corporate music industry, they often led to feelings of disempowerment among DJs. Along with the mainstreaming of alternative practices in the 1990s came an increasing vigilance among underground communities, who sought to keep their subcultures pure and untainted by corporate interests, yet as this article highlights, it is very difficult to remain isolated from commercial culture.

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