Grizzly Bear formed in Brooklyn in 2002, specializing in delicate riffs, choir-like singing, and meandering melodies that favored subtlety and quiet audiences. By 2009 the band reached mainstream success: Veckatimest debuted in the Billboard top ten, sold about 1.1 million copies, and its single "Two Weeks" appeared in a Super Bowl Volkswagen commercial. The attendance of Jay-Z and Beyoncé at a concert signaled a shrinking divide between indie and mainstream and prompted Jay-Z to call the indie rock movement inspiring. Indie rock began in the late 1970s as a DIY punk-influenced scene; by the 2000s the label expanded to include chart hits, TV placements, and a consumer economy that turned vintage clothing and microbrewed beer into corporate products, diluting the term's original meaning.
As far as rock stardom goes, Grizzly Bear was never an obvious candidate. A Brooklyn-based band that formed in 2002, it specialized in subtlety-delicate riffs, choir-like singing, meandering melodies. Some musicians ask their crowds to "make some noise"; in the new book Such Great Heights: The Complete History of the Indie Rock Explosion, the music journalist Chris DeVille remembers seeing Grizzly Bear's lead singer praise an audience for being "so quiet and attentive."
But during the 2000s, it came to refer to all sorts of art and product united by a vague preference for scruffiness over polish. Indie included songs on the Billboard Hot 100, such as Modest Mouse's "Float On." It encompassed the music on The O.C., a show watched by millions. It was a consumer economy that made vintage clothing and microbrewed beer into corporate endeavors (pour one out for American Apparel).
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