In a recent article in The New Yorker, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones said that the term "indie rock" has become "an aesthetic description, and no longer has anything to do with (record) labels." If that's the case, then exactly what kind of aesthetic does indie rock describe?
A fair way to answer that would be to look at the band currently considered indie's standard bearer. That's The Shins, who have sold more than 500,000 copies of their third album, "Wincing the Night Away," since it was released in January — making it the all-time best-selling record for the Pacific Northwest's flagship indie label, Sub Pop.
The success of the album and its attendant financial rewards are hardly lost on The Shins' leader, James Mercer, but he also understands what it means to his so-called indie credibility.