Variables
- Name: Band name
- Home City: The city where the band formed or is based in
- Home Country: The country where the band formed or is based in
- Latitude: Latitude of the above city
- Longitude: Longitude of the above city
- Still Going?: Whether the band has officially split up. Reformed bands, and those that haven’t released anything in years but never officially split up, both count as “still going”
- Legendary: A subjective marker of the bands that were most influential
- Albums: Number of studio albums released. EPs, live albums and greatest hits compilations don’t count
- Guitars to Synths: Subjective rating on a 1-5 scale where 1 represents an almost total absence of synthesizers and 5 represents an almost total absence of guitars.
- Artsy to Populist: Subjective rating on a 1-5 scale where 1 represents more conceptual/artsy bands and 5 represents more populist bands.
- Loudness: Subjective rating on a 1-5 scale where 1 represents quieter, acoustic bands and 5 represents louder, more distorted/electric bands.
- Loudness: Subjective rating on a 1-5 scale where 1 represents the least cool bands and 5 represents the most cool bands.
- First album: Release date of the band’s first album. In a few instances, I used the first day of the month to represent albums where the precise date wasn’t known.
- Last album: Release date of the band’s most recent album. In a few instances, I used the first day of the month to represent albums where the precise date wasn’t known.
- New Entry: Used to mark unreviewed entries.
- Any women in the band?: Whether any past or present band members self-define as women.
Some FAQs:
How comprehensive is this?
It’s a work in progress, but I think it’s pretty good. It definitely covers all of the top-tier and the vast majority of the mid-tier acts in the British and US indie scenes during the 00s. I’ve got a form here that allows anyone to submit additional acts that aren’t currently in the database.
What are the criteria for inclusion?
I’m defining “indie” fairly loosely, as “musicians and bands that the NME got excited about in the 00s”. This means that e.g. The Streets and Amy Winehouse are “indie”, and Coldplay are not, which some might find questionable, but the objective is to document a particular scene. The former examples were definitely part of and influenced that scene, the latter is is not and did not.
You forgot to include my favourite band!
There are two reasons why your favourite band might not be in here. The first is that I might have decided it didn’t quite fit into the scene. Coldplay, for example, are absolutely a mid-00s indie band, but they didn’t really give or take influence from anyone else here. The other reason is that I might have forgotten about them. In either case you should check if they’re already in the 00s indie band database, and add them if they’re not there.
Can I use this data in my project?
Absolutely, yes, as long as you credit “The 00s Indie Band Database” with a link to this page: http://www.duncangeere.com/00sindiebanddatabase/.
I have another question!
Email Duncan at radio.edit@gmail.com.