Make Indie Music Indie Again: The Rise and Fall of the Sadcore Aesthetic in the 2010s
Sadcore: An extension of alternative/independent rock, Sadcore is slow, fragile, and gut-wrenching music made by and for the depressed. Themes usually include but are not limited to: heartbreak, loss, and misery. (Definition of “Sadcore” from the Urban Dictionary)
I still remember the moment I first listened to indie music (not to be confused with the moment I learned what indie music actually was): Lana Del Rey had just dropped the Paradise edition of Born to Die, and my father had bought me a copy because, even though he had no idea who she was, he thought I might like it.
And indeed, after a few listens, I eventually ended up loving these pop sounds, so different from the (often trashy) mainstream beats everyone else was listening to – “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO being the primary example of the music I’ve just described.
Since we’re here, why don’t we take a trip down memory lane, back to the time indie-pop wasn’t in everyone’s playlists, and only a few intellectuals like myself were watching the alternative music scene subtly yet inevitably flourishing over the years.
Lana Crawled…
First, let’s dive into an accurate research of Lana’s previous album before Born to Die, the unknown Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant, which was released digitally on iTunes Store and Amazon by 5 Points Records in 2010. Actually, it wouldn’t be completely right to say that Lana’s self-titled debut album is what started the Golden Era of Indie Sadcore, as I like to call it.
Another artist, then known as Katy Hudson, had dropped a self-titled album of indie pop/rock Christian songs that merely ended up selling 200 copies due to the label’s bankruptcy right before its release. Years later, she turned her persona upside down, changed her last name to Perry, and dropped the best-selling Teenage Dream, a bubblegum pop monster that sold 192,000 copies in its first week.
But let’s focus on Lana.
One year after the release of Born to Die, Lana reached some more notoriety among the mainstream public thanks to the Cedric Gervais remix of “Summertime Sadness”. That’s when everyone magically became aware of who Lana Del Rey was and started acting as they had always been listening to indie music, as it suddenly turned into a cool genre.
But I digress…
At this time, Lana is the undefeated Queen of Indie Pop. However, no yin is complete without its yang, a yang by the name of Marina Lambrini Diamandis, whose career started around the same time as Lana’s. Before changing her stage name to simply Marina, the Welsh artist published a remarkable trilogy of albums as Marina and the Diamonds: The Family Jewels (2010), the amazing concept project Electra Heart (2012), and Froot (2015).
The character of Electra Heart, in particular, embodies four key archetypes that are explored in different songs of the album: Homewrecker, Beauty Queen, Housewife, and Idle Teen. At the core of Electra Heart is the loss of identity and, instead, the desire to self-identify with an ideal in the pursuit of fame and glory, which is what Lana’s Born to Die and its Paradise edition are all about: it’s better to die young and famous than old and forgotten. And to achieve what you want, you often need to fake a personality that doesn’t often represent your true self, and sometimes, you even have to adopt several, depending on the situation. This is best explained by Marina’s line in “Oh No!”: “‘Cause I feel like I’m the worst / So I always act like I’m the best / [...] / TV taught me how to feel / Now real life has no appeal.”
… And Lorde Walked…
In 2013, a new indie-pop icon appeared on mainstream platforms. Straight out of New Zealand, Ella Yelich-O’Connor, best known by the name of Lorde, exploded with her minimalistic hit “Royals”, featured in her debut album Pure Heroine with other big singles as “Tennis Court” and “Team”. The project revolves around the struggles and angst of adolescence, which the artist was still experiencing while rising to fame at the age of 17.
After a great first album, it is always difficult to pull out a worthy follow-up, as is difficult to criticize it without biases. When her new leading single “Green Light” came out after four years of hiatus, I was worried that Lorde was going to lose that mysterious image that made her so appealing in the first place. But boy was I wrong. Because her sophomore album Melodrama encapsulates everything that made Lorde so great when the world became aware of her, adding a twist of more electronic-sounding and catchy beats you can dance to even when sad.
Melodrama was inspired by her breakup with her then-boyfriend, ending on a positive note of self-discovery, admitting that not everything was as perfect as she wants to remember it. The album featured my favorite song of 2017: “Liability”, a ballad on the fleeting nature of human relationships, whether romantic or not. Since, unfortunately, I can’t quote the whole song, I will link her SNL performance so you can savor every word, every painful line of this tiny masterpiece that is at the heart of Melodrama.
With the concept of sadcore trending more and more among the mainstream public, it’s around this period that many Lana-lookalikes started appearing in the music industry, without being particularly successful. Swedish singer-songwriter Winona Oak and her (grammatically wrong) song “He Don’t Love Me” is the best example that comes to mind of this expected invasion of artists that suddenly wanted to profit out of the popularity of the Sadcore narrative.
… So that Billie Could Run.
2019. Another indie artist starts making headlines. Her name is Billie Eilish and her hit “bad guy” is playing everywhere. Little by little, her sound, enhanced by her team’s social media strategy, takes her all over the world and makes her the symbol of Gen Z teenagers, whose lives are dictated by likes and TikTok routines, by Instagram influencers and climate change.
I will not go into details in this section as, in my first article for Unpublished, titled Happier Than Ever: The Premature Decline of Billie Eilish?, I’ve already shared my views on Billie’s transition from her major debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? to her sophomore project Happier Than Ever. So, to avoid repeating myself, I will redirect you to that feature so you can have a look for yourself and dig deeper into the change of Billie’s sound and persona.
What I will say is, although Billie is certainly a very talented young artist, it is impossible that the legacy that Lana and Lorde left behind didn’t have a role in her massive success, which indie artists could only dream of. To support this point, Billie has even mentioned Lana’s “Off to the Races” as among her favorite songs of all time, and is also one of the first-ever Lana tracks I listened to.
And that was the epitome of the climax that had been building on throughout the 2010s: indie music was no longer the alternative to mainstream pop, but it had finally become the new pop, the sound everyone aspired to develop and to be known for.
The second decade of the new millennium finished as we indie kids wanted to: the triumph of indie over the mainstream. But, alas, that joy was short-lived.
2020’s: The Comeback of Happiness
After 10 years of unforgettable indie pop music, in 2021, the situation couldn’t be more different than that: after Lizzo’s daily dose of self-love and positivity injected into her major album Cuz I Love You, people suddenly remembered how nice it was to be self-confident and joyful, and some indie artists felt compelled to convey these same messages in their music.
Consequently, while Lana maintained her indie aesthetic, evanescent vocals, and chilled rainy-afternoon vibes, Lorde and Billie not only completely changed their sound but also their look and public image to fit their shocking – dare I say “happier” — new projects, as exemplified by the titles themselves: Solar Power and Happier Than Ever.
To put an even stronger emphasis on the end to the Golden Era of Indie Sadcore (and a symbolic one too) in 2019 Marina and the Diamonds officially changed her name to simply Marina.
Call it how you want, times have certainly changed: being sad and hopelessly in love is not what everybody wants anymore. While, for a brief yet exciting moment in time, pop was aiming to be more alternative, major indie artists that have dominated the 2010s are now trying to become more poppy and bubbly.
As we’re getting into 2022 and we’re anticipating projects from a number of artists, let’s hope that, in the next 365 days, we will listen to some good indie or, if that’s too much to ask, simply indie-sounding pop music that will represent a step forward in the development of such music genre.
Let us not waste the efforts that pioneers like Lana and Lorde made so that supernovas like Billie could shine brightest in today’s mainstream music scene.