When your favorite rapper releases the track list for their upcoming album, the first thing you look for is the features. The feature has grown in hip hop as a core tenet of the genre, tied to the creative power of producers and their pull for vocal talent. The process lends itself to that form of collaboration, with producers shopping beats to a variety of artists, sometimes shelling out hundreds of thousands for top talent to attract listeners. To go triple platinum with no features, well, that doesn’t happen often.
While the influence has solidified itself in pop of the last decade, indie rock remains a stalwart of isolation. The few indie crossovers we’ve seen remain exceptions to the rule. Even some are met with backlash, such as Faye Webster and Lil Yachty’s “Lego Ring” getting the “let people have fun!” treatment – almost worse than a Pitchfork 0.1. Where are all the indie features?
There is of course, Gorillaz, but that’s more hip hop than anything else. And for frontman Damon Albarn – a side project.
Side projects might be the culprit then. Indie remains an album-focused genre, so when artists do come together it usually comes with a full LP, rather than sharing verses on a single. The Postal Service, The Voidz, The Smile, etc. The most obvious example from the past year is boygenius – the side project super group of Julian Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, three solo artists. Bridgers even has an additional side project with Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst. Though this all may just be a symptom of Phoebe-mania, seeing her collaborations with The 1975, SZA, Muna, and more.
Those super groups and massive pop crossovers aren’t what I’m getting at, though. When will we see Caroline Polachek pop up on a black midi album?
Alas, that indie world will never materialize. Unlike rap, there’s little tying these artists to a scene other than time and place. Where shared experiences create a collaborative and competitive aura in other scenes, there’s no community building in indie – rich parents and beat strats don’t often yield a collective message. As the creative reigns in hip hop are split between beat-making producers and rotating MCs, a rock culture of writing all parts of the music yourself persists.
While it would be nice to break down that stigma, there’s a real motivation to keep these indie features rare. The collaborations we do see are notable for their scarcity – all moments that feel like a once in a lifetime connections between these artists. Building a culture where every album has a Phoebe verse would make these special features nothing new.
Check out some of our favorite indie features on our Spotify Playlist.
gone gazing 