good indie bands?

My favorite indie ones are: Enation (rock band) and Amber Sweeney (bluesy folk singer).

Ladybug Transister, The Good the Bad and the Queen, The Blakes, and my personal favorite band of all time Dntel.

Pyro, if ya like bluesy folk, check out the Geraldine Fibbers from about 9 years ago. They may not be that new, but they still rock rings around the competition.

Oh old stuff is cool, I've watched the Soul Story about 4 times now. I'll write down that band name though.

Btw in case you're not weird and lame like me I meant the timelife infomercial on soul story...

indie kills

Few of my favorites: Kill The Alarm, Minus The Bear, Berman, Bloc Party

Interpol, Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks and The Longcut my fav's at the mo.

Interpol is indie?

lol neither are Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party is debatable.

i prefer cheerful and quirky music, therefore...

Thunderbirds Are Now.
Dogs Die in Hot Cars.
Stereo Total.

sebadoh were pretty cool also crackjaw i like. oh and guided by voices.

Donkeyporkers, Horn Tooters and the Name Already Taken.

Great bands.

No seriously. Maximo Park. Enon, Explosions in the Sky.

The Kooks!

i believe bright eyes are indie - they're great!

The whitest boy alive

some great indie bands...hmmm...

New Pornographers
Moonbabies
Silversun Pickups
Metric

Have a look at allmusic.com's "spotlight archive". Its long been my favorite source of new indie recommendations. I discovered many of my all time favorites there. Some especially notable entries include:

The Books (found sounds/awesome vocal samples)
Devin Davis (one man indierock superproducer)
Quintron (voodoo organ disco danceclash)
Prototypes (sexy french dace pop)
Peter, Bjorn & John (swedish guitar pop/Beatles-ish)
Architecture in Helsinki (eclectic, lively indie pop)
Neon Blonde (Blood Brothers side project)
The Young Tradition (Belle & Sebastian-ish indie pop)
Kelley Polar (groovy techno with violins)

...and MUCH more

Air Traffic ^^

Local H ftw

hmm, i like alot of cocorosie lately and john wayne shot me (thanks anti), and kings of convenience.

Check out:
Liars
Handsome Furs
St. Vincent
Noah Georgeson

Broken Social Scene
Feist
Phoenix
Autolux

In this thread:

We call bands independent that are signed to majors.

Well, but most of them are from this original indieundergroundthing. I do not think that it is so bad that they were now signed on a major. It is even easier to see them on other continents for example.

In this thread:

We defend calling bands independent when they are in fact not independent.

You are wrong about one thing c72, its more than in this thread. Indie has definitely migrated from a meaning to a "sound," I think. Perhaps so, and there's nothing wrong with it.

So indie is a genre? Like jazz? Classical? What are the defining characteristics of this "sound"? So is independent cinema a genre as well?

Indie, for as long as I've known the term, means on an independent label. A lot of the bands listed here are about as corporate as you can get and just plain old mainstream pop\rock.

yeah c72, i agree. i have always considered the term "indie'' as an independent label band too.

My all time favorite Indie band is called The Hush Sound. Ever heard of them?

I would list some, but then I'd have to go through all my music and find the 5 or so that are with major labels.

But I must say that I do think independent music has a different sound to a certain extent. Because I think they put more effort/love into the music. They really must love what their doing to be independent and go through the trouble of putting out their own stuff.

Whereas if I listen to [insert any random rock group's name here] they all sound the same. Because they all use all that special fancy equipment to make them sound better. And they all scream, and sound like teenage boys. Et cetera et cetera.

Ya know?

You should definitely try some music by The Beautiful Girls from Australia, a great track to start with is La Mar.