My paper will be examining these forces and the anxieties they cause within the indie music scene. I believe that, while the indie taste is a matter of personal preference, with aestheticism being the focus, popular taste is bound to pop culture, with certain forces that undercut a true enjoyment of music. There must be, then, a distinction in the notion of taste between the two categories. However, the fact that music aficionados rarely deem the mainstream as 'good music' is paradoxical after all, common sense tells us that the best music would garner praise from the masses. PANDORA'S MUSIC BOX: INDIE MUSIC, MAINSTREAM MUSIC, AND ANXIETIES ABOUT POP CULTUREĭue to the nature of popular music, 'indie rock,' which has evolved into the musical equivalent of high art amongst today's American youth, is consistently eclipsed by the mainstream. However, it is only rock that has come to signify 'whiteness,' at least as the absence of 'blackness.' Drawing on the fields of ethnomusicology and semiotics, I attempt to uncover the roots of this racial switch of signifiers and address the issue of appropriation in music.

All three crashed into the mainstream and caused a paradigm shift in American popular culture, despite the opposition of conservative social forces. All three originated largely in the black community. Jazz, rock, and rap all have several things in common.

Do they not set the fashion and give laws to the public taste?' - Knickerbocker Magazine, 1845

'Who are our true rulers? The Negro poets, to be sure. WHITE RIOT: BLACK MUSIC AND THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM

The binding of isaac pandora's box