Indie
Indie is a loose umbrella term for music released independently of major labels, and for the guitar-led and alternative styles associated with that world.
The word is short for independent and at first described how records were made and sold, on small labels with small budgets. Over time it also came to mean a sound and attitude: indie rock, indie pop, indie folk and their relatives, often with a do-it-yourself feel. Today many artists called indie are signed to major labels, so the term says more about style than about business.
- Family
- Alternative & Indie
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A broad heading
- From
- United Kingdom and United States, late 1970s
- Also called
- independent music, indie music
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 30%
About 25,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have indie among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Indie artists
Arctic Monkeys
Tame Impala
Mac DeMarco
Wallows
MGMT
Two Door Cinema Club
Her's
Catfish and the Bottlemen
Royel Otis
The Kooks
The indie artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.