A Rough Guide To: Indie Sleaze

a-rough-guide-to:-indie-sleaze
A Rough Guide To: Indie Sleaze

Master Peace, an up-and-coming artist, is breathing new life into the noughties phenomenon of “indie sleaze” with his eagerly awaited debut album, “How to Make a Master Peace”. The term “indie sleaze” was coined in 2021 to describe the gritty and carefree sound, aesthetic, and culture of the early noughties indie rock scene. With the help of an Instagram account, @indiesleaze, curated by a Toronto creator, this era’s most iconic and representative pictures and figures, from early 2000s Kate Moss at Glastonbury to BTS photos of the Skins cast, are celebrated.

Indie sleaze’s primary origins can be traced back to New York City indie rock bands with a post-grunge attitude, such as The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Interpol. Over time, indie sleaze broadened to become an umbrella term for various styles of indie music, characterized by their fusion of dance and punk, including Digitalism, Mason, Daft Punk, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, and more. Many indie sleaze artists were also defined by their pure rock and roll energy, such as Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, and later Vampire Weekend.

For Master Peace, indie sleaze’s clothes, pictures, nostalgia, and music brought it to his attention from an early age, leading him to carry the torch in his debut album. Reflecting on this era’s stand-out records, Master Peace highlights albums that influenced his own artistic vision, such as Calvin Harris’s “I Created Disco,” Bloc Party’s “Silent Alarm,” Friendly Fires’ “Friendly Fires,” The Strokes’ “Is This It,” and Interpol’s “Turn on the Bright Lights.”

Through the mesmerizing vocals of Julian Casablancas on The Strokes’ “Is This It,” the beauty of Interpol’s melancholy on “Turn On the Bright Lights,” and the monster synths in Calvin Harris’s “I Created Disco,” Master Peace pays homage to an unforgettable stretch in music history that captured fans’ hearts. Indie sleaze remains an influential genre, and Master Peace, among many others, has helped revive it, bringing a fresh take on the genre to a new generation of music fans

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