Indie/Alternative

Indie rock artists traditionally aspire to commercial and artistic autonomy, selectively self-marketing their music as inexpensively as possible outside the elaborate mechanisms of the music industry. Spun for postage on subsidized college radio and distributed on cheap cassettes, indie rock has ironically provided the rock-oriented mainstream with some of its most unique and influential albums. R.E.M.'s Murmur and the Replacements' Let it Be became huge cult sensations via word-of-mouth in the 1980s, while the Archers of Loaf's Icky Mettle and Elliott Smith's Either/Or achieved similar uncanny success in the '90s. All of this helped pave the way for the commercial success of bands like Modest Mouse, the Shins and Bright Eyes in the new millennium.