NEITHER MUSIC GENRE NOR JUST AN STYLE: THE “INDIE” PHENOMENON IN LA PLATA AS A NEW USE OF MUSIC

Abstract

During the 2000's, indie music became relatively central in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. In this article, we study the "indie" of the city of La Plata and affirm that it is not a musical genre as such and cannot be defined only by stylistic criteria. We do it from an ethnographic research that privileged the participant observation. This was complemented by in-depth interviews with musicians and other participants of the indie scene in La Plata. We understand that "indie" is a way of doing things, it is the manifestation of a new relationship with music and the means of music production. Under which parameters do we understand "indie", given that its logic escapes that established by the identity appropriation of musical genres? We describe indie music in La Plata between 2009 and 2015 and show its history and evolution. We explore the discussions on the uses of music in the local context, from the subculturalist perspective to the more recent pragmatic approach, in which we highlight the concept of musical mediation. In this way, we propose a reformulation of the concept of music in use to achieve a better understanding of indie and other contemporary musical phenomena.