The term “indie sleaze” has captivated much of the internet ever since Charli XCX’s Brat released. It is a genre characterized by electroclash, pop-techno, house music and urban culture. I adore most songs that you would find on indie sleaze playlists, but as a genre, it does not really exist outside of people trying to make it a thing.
"Indie sleaze" was coined as a term during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely due to the amount of people on the internet needing to find community. Indie sleaze musicians were all somewhat similar and poof, a new genre was born. Older artists like CSS and MGMT were what a lot of indie sleaze pioneers wanted the genre to represent. Newer artists like Frost Children, The Hellp, The Dare, and 2hollis expanded on this. This is where it fails though: indie sleaze is meant to describe the various genres of electroclash, bloghouse, etc. It was not meant to be a pioneer for a new genre!
All these artists make good music independently and obviously take inspiration from each other as they advance this broad genre of music. If you look at the fans of this genre though, they are all trying too hard to be cool. An interest in dark clothing, leather jackets, cigarettes; it seems very inauthentic to themselves, like they are trying too hard. They need to be cool and niche compared to all the “normies” in the music scene. They think of themselves as one step ahead of the curve when in reality they are in their own sphere that rarely ventures out.
I don't see this among other indie spheres. Maybe that is just because I am not in those spheres because I find most of the acoustic indie stuff boring. Many indie sleaze artists are posting on Reddit, complaining that the crowds at recent concerts are getting full and attracting "wannabes". Writing this now has me thinking, am I the wannabe? I never find this music early on; I am not niche; I copy (or at least I want to) many of the aesthetics of people associated with this scene. Am I the problem?
This genre is too defined by aesthetics rather than actual music.
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