2010s Indie Essentials

In the early ‘00s, indie rock's abrasive surfaces started to get buffed away by the soothing influence of dance music. By the ‘10s, large swaths of the indie-verse had become guitar-free zones altogether, with New Wave revivalists Future Islands, DIY electro queen Grimes and cinematic maximalist M83 putting their singular, modernist spins on shiny, ‘80s-style synth-pop. Even rock-schooled acts like Spoon and Tame Impala surrendered to the allure of digitised beats and washed-out textures. But old-school adherents could still get their fuzz-box fix from the raucous anthems of Japandroids and the grungy diatribes of Courtney Barnett.