History of Indie Music

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, with its Scottish roots post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s (Josef K and Orange Juice) and the dominant UK independent band of the mid-'80s, The Smiths.
Indie pop was inspired by punk's DIY ethic and related ideologies, and it generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Indie pop is different from indie rock for these few reasons; it is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free.
The term "indie" had been used for some time to describe artists on independent labels (and the labels themselves), but the key moment in the naming of "indie pop" as a genre was the release of NME's C86 tape in 1986. The compilation featured, among other artists, Primal Scream, The Pastels, and The Wedding Present, and "indie" quickly became shorthand for a genre whose defining conventions were identified as jangling guitars, a love of '60s pop, and melodic power pop song structures.
In the mid to late '80s, indie pop was criticised for its associations with so-called "shambling" and underachievement.
Indie pop continues to have a strong following and inspire musicians, not just in the UK but around the world, with new bands, labels and clubs devoted to the genre.
NME followed up C81 with C86. Similarly designed to reflect the new music scene of the time in the UK, it is now seen as the birth of indie pop in the UK.
The UK music press was, in 1986, highly competitive, with four weekly papers documenting new bands and trends. The grouping of bands, often artificially, with an overarching label to heighten interest or sell copies, was commonplace. NME journalists of the period now agree that C86 was an example of this, but also a by-product of NME's "hip hop wars".