There's a whole new music sweeping the nation. It's called Indie

Having it's Emily-from-Big-Brother-8 moment, the Philadelphia Inquierer invites a high school student to explain indie and tell its readers about the hip new bands.

There are many genres of music. You got your folk, rock, rap, pop, jazz, hip hop, the list goes on. But among these is also indie.

So, it's one of many genres. But what does it mean?

Indie is short for independent, meaning that these bands don't produce their music through a major record label. Therefore, these bands are usually very obscure. They usually experiment with different sounds and instruments, giving them music that is both interesting and incomparable.

Usually obscure and "different sounds and instruments" - clearly, the research for this piece didn't take in many of the xerox guitar plods who make up much of the indie cohorts.

Still, anyone who can sneak a positive review of Neutral Milk Hotel into the mainstream press can't be all bad.