Rilo Kiley and Rock's New Era

The mainstream press continues to write—with no subtle undercurrent of glee—about the woes of the recording industry. But if you put your ear to the ground and hold your breath, you can hear a gorgeous chord of hope ringing as crisply and clearly as the opening strum of “A Hard Day’s Night.” As alarm bells ring in anticipation of a Christmas season where CD sales may finally bottom out, this year also offers a peek at new beginnings. For those who watch the Billboard charts on a week-to-week basis, recent high-charting debuts from groups like The Shins, Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse signal a sea change that’s brought some of the wittiest, edgiest and most organically satisfying artists to a level of accessibility and success otherwise barely imaginable in past eras, where the gloss and market blitz of disposable pop megastars inevitably overshadowed the quiet legions of journeyman bands evolving and slowly growing an audience through word-of-mouth, college radio and hard years on the road.

Of course, the juxtaposition of plastic pop acts and “sincere” indie-rockers is a canard, as the dichotomy is never so simple. Sometimes, even the glitziest pop acts are hard workers and sincere music lovers, and had long roads to “overnight success.” And the flags of purity, noble poverty, outsiderness and punk attitude that the more self-conscious denizens of the would-be indie underground tend to fly is often riddled with the shreds and knots of hypocrisy. But these basic facts remain: Bands with members over or approaching 30, with complex songs, varied instrumentation, no Behind the Music melodrama and no obvious radio singles are able to hit doubles and triples commercially with little sensationalism these days, when a decade ago they would’ve been unlikely to get a solid at-bat. And they’re increasingly releasing records on major labels that would’ve had limited interest in the heydays hair metal, pop rap or boybands. We’re in an era where the Clever Indie Everyperson has reached a higher stratum of the cultural jetstream.

Los Angeles’ Rilo Kiley is a significant case in point. Only three full-length albums into their career, they’ve become low-gloss superstars within the rarified world of blogs, music magazines and left-of-the-dial radio, propelled by songs and an understated charisma. On the heels of More Adventurous, their first release distributed by Warner Bros., and a series of festival performances ranging from Glastonbury to Coachella, the band only increased its cachet by scattering to the winds long enough to pursue solo albums and other side projects that seeped deeper into the collective conscious. Guitarist/vocalist Blake Sennett renewed his work with The Elected, an elegant and underrated indie collective; bassist Pierre de Reeder did artwork and design for other artists (including Rilo Kiley vocalist Jenny Lewis) while writing his own songs and Lewis collaborated with Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard in The Postal Service and released the excellent, country-tinged Rabbit Fur Coat with the Watson Twins, featuring Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel on the skins and Conor Oberst and Gibbard on guest vocals. The critical acclaim lavished on these albums has only served to raise expectations as Rilo Kiley prepares for the upcoming release of its fourth record, Under the Blacklight.

Like the other workmanlike lights of the rich, emerging indie-heading-mainstream tier (see also Spoon, Broken Social Scene, Neko Case and M. Ward), Rilo Kiley operates with intention and artistry, but isn’t performance art the way metal acts or Iggy Pop are. Rather, the band revitalizes the Laurel Canyon aesthetic, in which artists like Joni Mitchell and Stephen Stills churned out songs without their images hovering over them like a paisley veneer—at least until their talent created weighty expectations that their names and the occasional gossip inevitably began to cue.