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Slanted And Enchanted: The Evolution Of Indie Culture (2009)

by Kaya Oakes(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0805088520 (ISBN13: 9780805088526)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Henry Holt & Company

review 1: (3.5 stars) A very engaging look at "indie" culture, which the author defines as anything in opposition to the current status quo. Oakes finds indie roots in the New York School of poets and particularly Frank O'Hara, but the book covers everything from music to crafting. This is not a book for hipsters; hard work and a supportive community are necessary for anything indie to have a chance and even then things might not work out. (Oakes was involved in a now-defunct magazine) In the end, Oakes argues that commercialization and the Internet may have rendered the term "indie" less meaningful but there will always be someone defying the norm and keeping the indie spirit alive. Oakes is optimistic, but realistic, about the future.
review 2: This book was fairly mar... moreginal for me. I went into expecting a discourse on the evolution of indie culture revolving mostly around music. I'm into indie rock, so that's what I care about. I don't care that much about the poets of the '50s and '60s (though that was somewhat enlightening for me), or indie comic books, or indie publishers, or the world of indie crafts. The roughest part of the book was the overly long description of the girl who goes around to craft shows in a little box and talks to people as if she were a robot and spits out homemade postcards for them. A couple of paragraphs on her would have sufficed...having multiple pages was definitely overkill. There were segments of the book covering topics that I did enjoy and did find informative -- the punk scene in Berkeley in the late '80s (924 Gilman Street, Operation Ivy, etc.), the Olympia, Washington scene with Beat Happening / riot grrrl / Bikini Kill, and the chapter I waited most patiently for, which discussed Pavement / indie labels / the evolution of indie rock in the early '90s through its popularity today. That was good stuff. So all in all, the material felt stretched out just to make a full book out of it, and it covered some topics in which I just wasn't that interested. So a marginal three stars from me. less

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