2004: The Year Indie Rock Broke

Being an indie rock fan in 2004 meant hearing your favorite indie band on a McDonald’s ad, not being able to get into shows, and seeing your DIY fave on MTV. How did we get here?

Revisiting the origins of late Gen X indie rock in the '90s and '00s, focused on what was happening at the turn of the century in Seattle with Sub Pop and Barsuk, Canada with a whole slew of bands who'd end up on lots of different labels, Omaha with Saddle Creek, and the bands on Merge out of Durham, North Carolina through interviews with the bands and labels doing it all.

Indie invades the TV screens and theaters of America, as shows including The O.C. and Gilmore Girls, and films like Garden State, make indie a huge part of their personality. Includes interviews with showrunners, bands, and licensing pros.

What does it even mean to sell out? An episode about licensing songs to commercials and signing to major labels that focuses on the question, "When were you able to quit your job and become a musician full time?" And then tells the stories of Modest Mouse signing to Epic and having a massive hit in 2004 through the eyes of its A&R man and a band member, and the wild story of how Feist accidentally ended up on the biggest label in North America without even trying or having to recoup.

A short history of the music blog world starts us with the NYC bloggers of the late '90s and pushes into the uneasy relationship bands have with a music media that increasingly takes them seriously. Includes interviews with Sarah Lewitinn of Spin, Scott Lapatine of Stereogum, Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork, and many of the bands they wrote about.

The radio was still where bands broke in 2004, and this episode shows us where that happened as the '00 garage rock revival killed off dirt rock at alt radio, and indie struggled to be accepted — except when it was easy. It was also the prime era of some of the biggest festivals in the world, so hear straight from the bands what it was like to play Coachella, Sasquatch, and more.