You're with Stupid
kranky, Chicago, and the Reinvention of Indie Music
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- $35.99
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- $35.99
Publisher Description
2023 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research, Association for Recorded Sound Collections
An insider’s look at how Chicago’s underground music industry transformed indie rock in the 1990s.
In the 1990s, Chicago was at the center of indie rock, propelling bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair to the national stage. The musical ecosystem from which these bands emerged, though, was expansive and diverse. Grunge players comingled with the electronic, jazz, psychedelic, and ambient music communities, and an inventive, collaborative group of local labels—kranky, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, among others—embraced the new, evolving sound of indie “rock.” Bruce Adams, co-founder of kranky records, was there to bear witness.
In You’re with Stupid, Adams offers an insider’s look at the role Chicago’s underground music industry played in the transformation of indie rock. Chicago labels, as Adams explains, used the attention brought by national acts to launch bands that drew on influences outside the Nirvana-inspired sound then dominating pop. The bands themselves—Labradford, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low—were not necessarily based in Chicago, but it was Chicago labels like kranky that had the ears and the infrastructure to do something with this new music. In this way, Chicago-shaped sounds reached the wider world, presaging the genre-blending music of the twenty-first century. From an author who helped create the scene and launched some of its best music, You’re with Stupid is a fascinating and entertaining read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this in-depth account, Adams tells the origin story of kranky, a formative indie record label he cofounded in Chicago in the early 1990s. Though enamored with the sounds emanating from cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, and Olympia, Wash., Adams felt Chicago had something those places "couldn't match." In the days before internet marketing, bands got their names out via college radio, fanzines, and cassette tapes, and Adams threw himself into the grassroots marketing mix at Cargo Distribution. In 1993, kranky was born, signing bands such as the "expansive, grainy, and decidedly cinematic" Labradford. While the opening rush of the memoir is more magnetic than the slog through the details of the biz, overall what unfolds is a story of passion and perseverance with a soundtrack that echoes from the pages. More record deals are signed (Low in 1997; Stars of the Lid in 1998) and others lost (this plays on repeat). Snarky stickers boost the brand, including one with the motto, "You're with Stupid." Dedicated fans of '90s alt rock will find inspiration and lessons, though for a newbie the details will feel dense. As Adams admits, kranky never "thrived," but has an ongoing legacy. Despite some uneven pacing, the result's a jangly tour of the Chicago scene.
