Written by Ethan Ong, Terence Sim and Summer Chua
Indie music lovers, you now have another channel to get your audio fix. Indiego is a new music platform on Mediacorp’s meLISTEN digital audio service. Helmed by local singer-songwriter Charlie Lim as its music director, indiego will stream a mix of indie music from around the world as well as showcasing the works of local musicians.
According to Lim, he decided to join this project because he wanted to support the local music scene and thought it was an interesting idea to blend social media with the traditional radio format.
History of indie music
The indie movement certainly isn’t new but the indie aesthetic has had a sudden modern resurgence in the early 2020s, thanks to it trending on Tiktok. The modern indie culture is a lifestyle that is the opposite of the mainstream culture – instead, it prioritises uniqueness and independence.
In fact, the term ‘indie’ is associated with fashion, films, music, and anything that is outside of what was seen as mainstream. Short for ‘independent’, the term first used in the mid-1950s. It now also stands for artistes that operated under an independent label away from mainstream record labels.
Back when it was popularised in the late 1970s, indie music was a genre that surfaced from post-punk and was seen as the new wave as well as being considered the ‘alternative’. This indie movement rebelled against the mainstream music scene that was largely dominated by major record labels.
One of the earliest recorded indie successes was from an English pop-punk band- Buzzcocks, which you may know from their most popular song, Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?). Their success can be attributed to the release of their EP Spiral Scratch, which sold over 15,000 copies and influenced the new wave of independent artists.
Current day indie has developed more than just being rebellious or a subculture that deviates from mainstream music. It is now an evolving genre, that encompasses various music styles like indie-rock, indie-folk, indie-dance, indie-hip-hop and even indie-classical.
While the indie music scene was popularised in the UK as well as the US, it soon reached our sunny shores.
Singapore’s indie roots
The beginnings of the local Indie music scene origins can be traced back to the 1980s. The late DJ Chris Ho has long been credited for being a pioneer in the local indie music scene, being one of the first to introduce this new wave of music to the local audiences. As a musician himself, he and his band, Zircon Lounge, believed in pushing the boundaries and were not afraid to be adventurous.
Indie music slowly grew traction in the local music scene. However, the local market was still rather small and limited. Furthermore, it did not help that the sales of indie albums were not doing well. Thus, profit-focused labels did not offer up and coming local artiste contracts due to the low-profit margins.
However, this did not stop the growth of the local indie music scene. Instead, many of these artistes who were not backed by big record labels produced low-budget demos of their songs.
In the early 2000s, the local indie music scene started to attract larger audiences. Baybeats, an annual three-day indie music festival hosted by the Esplanade went from having 9000 audiences in 2002 to a crowd of over 100,000 in 2009.
(PHOTO: Chloe Le)
Budding musicians and social media
The growing number of listeners can also be attributed to the internet and social media. There has never been a better time for artistes to share and reach out to different audiences. The explosion of social media has allowed independent musicians to publish and promote their music and their music videos on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Spotify.
Apart from the rise of social media, the increase in global music streaming platforms has boosted the local music scene as well.
Local rapper Axel Brizzy, 24, has garnered over two million streams since he became a professional artiste six years ago. He recounted that the advent of social media was a blessing to him at the start of his career.
“The first step when I first started out was tough as I did not really know how to get people to notice my music,” said Brizzy. “But with the blessing of social media, anything is possible. I kept doing my thing and with effort, people came to realise my music.”
Brizzy felt that indiego has done a great job thus far with their shows and is a bonus for local artistes like himself.
“Indiego provides an extra opportunity for local artistes to have their songs played, helping them to increase their following. Artistes also benefit from the royalties they receive from having their song streamed,” he explained.
In addition, he hopes that in the future, indiego can invite artistes for live performances, interviews and produce more content in collaboration to market their music to a wider audience.
Connecting with audience online
In addition to streaming its content over the meLISTEN platform, indiego will connect closely with their listeners through social media with additional content over Instagram and TikTok. One of its advantages, as an online radio platform, is that it has fewer restrictions to follow.
Said Lim: “This allows our DJs to have more autonomy to do shows they want to do. In addition, our playlists are more decentralised as the DJs have more control over them.”
Aspiring artistes who wish to have the opportunity to have their music shared with a wider audience will be happy to know that indiego is extremely supportive of the local music scene.
“There are no real criteria that have to be met,” Lim explained. “But of course, the music has to be of a certain quality. There is no strict policy or super high benchmark. We value artistes that care about their craft and I believe it will show in their music.”
With many new opportunities for aspiring local artistes, Brizzy’s advice to the newer artistes who have yet found their breakthrough is this: “Make use of social media and just keep working hard to show why you’re different.”
