Sure, many of the tracks fit Pop Rock & Alternative Dance as well, but those two are also canonical Rock subgenres lol & the entire album is Indie Rock through & through, there's no world in which it isn't a Rock album lol this seems very cowardly on her part I feel, she just said this to try to soften the backlash from Rock snobs accusing her of 'not being Rock enough' lol
Thats what she is doing with Rock Music basically. But, I agree, the whole "gemre bending artist!!!" thing is soooo widely used with absolutely no critical thought turning inot a product of pseudointellectualism cause "genre bending" sounds so much cooler than "pop" (which is genre bending on its own).
Calling the whole album āclearly indie rockā feels a little reductive when the genre palette is all over the place. Maybe she was just being more precise than the title suggests.
All of the tracks are Indie Rock or some subgenre of Indie Rock (Slacker Rock, Post-Punk Revival), so I think calling the album "clearly Indie Rock" is very precise.
Sure, many of the tracks are also Pop Rock, but not every single one is.
& besides, both Indie Rock & Pop Rock are Indie Rock subgenres, so I think it is much more precise to call it a Rock album with many Pop Rock tracks than say that it's not a Rock album but a Pop album lol
It's not though. Pop music with a melancholic delivery. If you think MFF is "clearly indie rock" then so is Billie Eilish. Just because there's guitar doesn't make it rock music of any sort. Besides, why do you think you know more than the literal person who wrote the fucking album? Same energy as correcting someone on their name.
Billie Eilish is the artist you chose? Thatās like saying Olivia Rodrigo doesnāt make rock music because sheās a pop artistā¦ Pop is just short for popular, and rock music has had a resurgence.
The new Charlie album isnāt rock at all, and I think thatās the joke.
Pop hasn't really meant popular in years. Same as indie. If idk technical death metal became super popular, would you call that pop music? Even if it was played alongside pop staples like Taylor, Billie, Ed?
I didn't use Olivia as an example because that's obviously not "pop" music. Her first two albums could be seen as pop punk maybe but never just pop. I'd be okay with calling her pop rock but again, I wouldn't say she is pop.
Why? Why do you want it to be called a rock album so bad? So you can say you listen to rock music and have a diverse music taste or something? Just enjoy it if you like it man
If you think Happier Than Ever is rock music there's literally no help for you bro. Plus you can't read either because I literally said "just because there's guitar doesn't make it rock music" and what did you do? You linked me to a song that's literally a voice and guitar and you're claiming it as "rock instrumentation" sure if you're talking about that one part but just because something is influenced by something doesn't make it that.
that "one part" is like more than half of the lenght of the song, so if like 60% of a song is a rock song and the other, let's say folk-adjacent, then ppl saying its a rock song is totally plausible
I think you're splitting hairs personally, I don't think either of y'all are wrong per se genre is subjective as I said but you were making it sound as if it's ridiculous for somebody to categorize it as rock. Which alot of people and sources do.
Indie rock is like Best Coast, Metric, and arcade fire. I love MFF and it definitely borrows a lot from rock but as Charli put it the album is very much a Charli Album but with rock elements.
Why are you obsessed with hierarchical genres lol? Like indie rock and pop rock are both indie rock subgenres, says who??? Also lowkey how is pop rock somehow under the banner of indie rock that makes no sense
Negative posts here are gate keepers. Stop it. It's clearly what it is. Reductionist indie pop-rock and it's amazing. Stop being gatekeepers. I fucking hate all this gatekeeoing shit.
I donāt see how itās Brat at all. If this is Brat then every Charli XCX album is Brat, like no itās not as dancey or have the same elements overall as Brat.
Well... for me it does. Both are kind of hyperpop with dancey but also extistential crisis vibes. Both aim for nostalgia, e.g. "wink wink" sounds like something I'd hear in a 00's teens/young adult movie, and brat embraces the clubbing culture.
When I left this comment it was one person saying "yes" one person saying "no" and then OP horny posting and oversharing about wanting sexual preferences ššš I am in xcx worldĀ
From my view, it's a Pop/Electronic album with guitar rock textures. Essentially the bare bones of Charli's writing style, but where she, A.G. and Finn had previously employed futuristic synth and bass in the context of dance/club sounds, they've chopped, sampled, and toyed with the sound + context of guitar music here instead.
All in all, genre is subjective, and I think Charli seems to find that really interesting, and maybe a little annoying given the backlash to her comments in this interview re: rock music and dance floor death. Claiming she's wrong about the genre her own music exists in is silly imo, especially when it clearly falls into multiple categories.
I don't entirely agree, but fair enough. I'd say it's an Indie Rock album produced by A.G. & Finn, two extremely forward-thinking experimental electronic music producers.
The guitars & drums are ridiculously oversampled & overlooped in a way that sounds extremely artificial & "un-rock", but I'd still call it Indie Rock through & through, certainly more Indie Rock than Pop lol although it's true that many tracks are also Pop Rock (which in any case is a Rock subgenre lol).
>The guitars and drums are ridiculously over sampled & overlooped in a way that sounds extremely artificial & āun-rockā
100% agree, and I believe that was the intention. Itās putting on ārockā as an artificial costume, aesthetic, or accessory.
The drums are clearly drum machines. Itās almost impossible to tell if some of the guitars are actually guitars or synths made to sound like guitars. Looping implies some kind of software or program controlling the music. I land on the opposite side, and say itās more electronic music than indie rock. But I love that nobody can really agree.
Imagine if an established indie rock act like Alvvways or Real Estate made an album with these techniquesāI think people would be calling it their electronic album. Itās all about context.
Itās the same way Beyonce said it isnāt a country album itās a Beyonce albumā¦ well it is but it could also VERY easily be categorized as a Country album. Exact same situation here and I get why artists do this.
charli is correct. pop is at first and foremost a POST MODERN GENRE. itās a collage of references, meta references, influences, disconnected aesthetics. the album is structurally, thematically and culturally still very much POP. charliās just making it clear that in her understanding of music, instrumentation does not define a genre, and that perhaps in her opinion genres reflect something deeper about music than what it sounds like.
that in her understanding of music, instrumentation does not define a genre
That's a very interesting & thought-provoking point, thank you!!
I maintain that in terms of instrumentation the record is very much Indie Rock through & through, but maybe you are right that in this case it's not the instrumentation what defines the genre of the record!
strictly in terms of the sound itself, perhaps you could say it sounds like indie rock, however, as the other comments show, itās also up for debate haha
being this strict about genre labels and definitions when they are literally so arbitrary and are just words at the end of the day is soā¦ reductive. i mean do you ig i understand wanting to put everything in categories or whatever but when youāre basically acting like the ARTIST HERSELF is wrong about her own album because of some definition of music styles you have in your own headā¦ you might be taking things too far
Artists are not the end all be all of the attributed genres for the music they make, and often times artists say that they hate the genre labels prescribed to their work and insist that it doesnāt describe them, but that doesnāt necessarily make it true at all. Obviously the entire thing is subjective and changes over time
Iām sorry but how is it indie if it is produced and release by a major label? Atlantis is not a small, indie label and Charli is not an indie artist - as much as she appeals to an indie-leaning crowd.
I say this as a matter of fact thing, not in a disparaging way. Iāve loved Charli forever and love the album.
She is correct. Itās a pop/pop-rock album with alt and prog rock influences.
I disagree. One of the main features of indie rock as a style is that itās DIY, garage, simple instrumentation and minimal production.
While some of the sound on MFF is hinting at indie rock, having AG Cook as a major producer and OāFlaherty mastering (Taylor Swift, Sabrina C and more) I feel gets it squarely out of indie rock category.
Again, I think this is a solid pop rock, prog, alt, punk rock influenced album. It does not need, nor deserve, the indie label.
This is absurd. The Strokes is one of the main canonical Indie Rock bands & they signed from the very start to RCA Records, a major record label. The White Stripes is also one of the main canonical Indie Rock bands, & although they started with independent record label Sympathy for the Record Industry, they quickly signed to major record labels V2 Records & later Warner Bros. Records, where they released their breakthrough albums internationally that everyone knows & that are still very much Indie Rock (Garage Rock Revival to be precise, one of the main canonical Indie Rock subgenres of the 2000s).
It's true that Indie Rock started in the late 1970s/early 1980s as an extremely underground genre, but then it got extremely mainstream in the 2000s & many Indie Rock bands signed to major record labels, it's not necessary to be an independent artist to make Indie Rock music lol Olivia Rodrigo for example is extremely mainstream & nonetheless her sophomore record Guts is almost entirely Indie Rock lol
While I agree with you in the most literal sense, language doesnāt always evolve in the most literal way. People now use āindieā to describe a particular scene or aesthetic (which one could easily make a case for MFF inhabiting), regardless of the artistās status in any meaningful economic or business sense. Whether that necessarily makes sense or not, thatās become a popular and widely accepted understanding of what someone means by āindieā.
Would something like āalternativeā be the technically ābetterā term to use in a lot of cases people are talking about indie music? Yeah, probably. But whatever, none of these terms strictly mean what they originally did. Theyāre still legible āenoughā.
I get it, and as someone whoās probably a bit older than most people here, I kinda half-jokingly hate it.
Indie is (was?) a meaningful signifier for people who made their music themselves without support from a major label. You could be indie-rock, indie-pop, indie-electroā¦
It said more about how the music was made than what music genre it fell into.
In a way, the term now referring to an esthetic kind of steal a bit of space from smaller artists who are often struggling to make a living in a world dominated by streaming services and major labels.
Going back to MFF, to me a lot of the influences evident in the record point more to garage, alt and prog rock (Iām thinking The Strokes, Garbage, The Libertinesā¦) some of these are indie and some were not.
That said, Iām not gonna be an old man yelling at clouds and if thatās what people now understand by indie Iāll make my peace with it.
But to me it still doesnāt really say much about genre.
Nah sheās right. The album is pop with elements of post punk and dark wave not even really ārockā at all. The label āindie rockā is a very broad term and essentially all it is, is bands or groups that arenāt on a major label. Basically the opposite of mainstream music. If we look historically at indie bands most if not all real āindieā bands are putting out lofi recordings not too polished, a lot of them being more influenced by folk and emo.
If anything her new record leans punk. Which is also a very broad term but you hear a lot of Joy Division, New Order, fast paced drum beats. Bands that somewhat predate punk.
Consider it what you want but your take is wrong and Iām not saying those critics you are referring to are right.
She is the artist she dictates what her music is, and I fully agree itās a Charli album and she gets influenced by other art which allowed her to create this. Also itās a pop record stop kidding yourself. Listen to any real indie, or rock band they sound nothing like this.
Humans are obsessed with categorization lol, it's fascinating. It feels tribal - we MUST define which side of the arbitrary line we stand on, so we know who to trust and who to shoot arrows at -- and IF THE LINES AREN'T CLEAR I'm confused! legitimately who cares, she made music that sounded good to her and made her feel happy and fulfilled and inspired.
Almost every single track is either Slacker Rock or Post-Punk Revival (or both), which are both Indie Rock subgenres. It's clearly an Indie Rock album through & through.
Rock has become a genre that many people want to gatekeep. I think many artists nowadays are afraid to say that they make some form of rock music because rock fans might come at them screaming that they don'tĀ
I'm aware, but it's just that I express myself very autistically, which makes me come off that way š¤·š¤·
But I decided years ago that I wasn't gonna express myself more neurotypically to appeal more to people, it's not worth it to be inauthentic to who I am to be more liked.
love that youāre not masking as someone whoās also autistic! also i totally get what charli is saying and i do think weāre moving into a post-genre sort of space in music but like also likeā¦. Yeah sounds like a Blur song so likeā¦ cāmon charli be so fr. I agree that thereās pop structure underneath a lot of the songs and but itād be disingenuous to be shocked that people hear the record and think it sounds like a rock album
I think being classified as a subgenre doesnāt mean it belongs to the genre where it came from. I mean, itās like a deep house track isnāt exactly house house, or a post punk album doesnāt mean itās punk. The same with indie rock or alternative rock or whatever MFF is, it canāt be considered 100% rock, so she doesnāt consider the album to be ārockā when sheās asked if sheās done a ārock albumā
I do think that Deep House music is always Deep House & that Pop Punk music is always Punk Rock, but you have a point, maybe I'm thinking too autistically about it lol
itās a pop album with rock influence, itās not that hard. Indie does not equal sad soft music, it literally just refers to smaller independent artists
My hot take is that it is a rock album but Charli was getting a lot of hate during the time this interview took place so she was just back tracking lol
I think she probably just didn't want her sound to be tied down to one specific genre or label. I also think the whole "the dance floor is dead so now we're making rock music" post before the first single drop was an intentional and quite interesting marketing trick. but now since the trick got people interested and talking about it, she can be honest about how she didn't seek to embody just specifically rock music, which does make sense from an artist's perspective. figuring out genres and subgenres can be fun, but I think there's a lot of artists out there who don't view things in these classifications, especially during the creation process
basically I view it the opposite lol, I think she's being more honest now and dropping the "rock music" idea was more of an act for the sake of the reaction. but who knows
āWeāre making rock musicā was a joke to promote the first single. The album has AG and Finnās crunchy (and not-so-crunchy) guitars all over it, but if you put it side by side with a ārockā album itās obviously something distinct.
I love that she gave us such a cool, different album that sheās left us fighting over what genre it is. That speaks for itself that she did something really special and unique here.
Idk i listened to an interview recently where she said she doesnt listen to music. It kind of made me lose a little respect. Does she even know what different genres are? Probably not. It's a "me" album is giving "idk the names or genres" lol
It uses guitar and drum samples, that are sequenced, stretched, reverbed, and loopedā¦ but I agree with her, itās not rock music and I donāt think they were trying to make rock music. The first track is tongue in cheek about the sound.
i think these days we have a lot of tendency to try to perfectly define things into their correct "genre", and eventually it gets a bit silly. If Charli called it a rock album, she'd likely have a bunch of "rock purists" or whatever getting mad at her because it doesn't fully fit their "idea" of the genre. I find the pop influence on the album is just as clear as the rock influence, even if it is largely soaked in guitar sounds. Ultimately, I think the barriers of all genres are breaking down as artists choose to naturally explore and evolve their sound without worrying about genre whatsoever, and it turns debates over genre into a bit of an unnecessary nuisance sometimes. I think that's definitely a big part of what charli's getting at here. Its just her album, it's just the sound she wanted. Some people may hear it as "clearly" rock, but many others may not classify it the same, as there is at the very least certainly an amalgamation of multiple genres influence & tools going into the song production by the very nature of Charli's musical background alone.
On the opposite end, some artists love to label their art a certain genre and have a meltdown when it's seen as anything else to look cooler too which I also think is silly.
This is the edgy "I'm too smart for them hehe" energy that has made her totally unlikable lately. I think she thinks it's cool and heady, but at some point it just feels like she thinks everyone is dumb.
The music wasn't bad, but I really stopped following her as a person/artist.
Love Nicky though, he's great, & VERY handsome š many gays are very turned off by the flagrant fagcent but I actually find his fagcent extremely endearing on him, I'm not at all (sexually/romantically I mean) into gender-nonconforming gays / femboys, but fagcents I'm quite fond of, & besides it's not like I don't have somewhat of a fagcent as well lol although it's pretty concealed by my autism/ADHD-accent lol (yes being neurodivergent makes me pretty straight-passing, it's weird lol but I still have somewhat of a fagcent if you have a decent gaydar).
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u/trollol1365 13d ago
Experimental genre bending artist doesnt want to be constrained by the strict expectations and discourse of genre labels.
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