page_title: Lo-fi music
section_title: 1970s–1980s: Indie, cassette culture, and outsider music
hierarchical_section_title: Lo-fi music / History / 1970s–1980s: Indie, cassette culture, and outsider music
caption_attribution_description: English: with Dub Narcotic Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
context_page_description: Lo-fi is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections of a recording or performance are audible, sometimes as a deliberate aesthetic choice. The standards of sound quality and music production have evolved throughout the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music.
  Harmonic distortion and "analog warmth" are sometimes misleadingly suggested as core features of lo-fi music. Its aesthetic is actually defined by the inclusion of elements normally viewed as undesirable in professional contexts, such as misplayed notes, environmental interference, or phonographic imperfections. Pioneering, influential, or otherwise significant artists include the Beach Boys, R. Stevie Moore, Paul McCartney, Todd Rundgren, Jandek, Daniel Johnston, Guided by Voices, Sebadoh, Beck, Pavement, and Ariel Pink.
  Although "lo-fi" has been in the cultural lexicon for approximately as long as "high fidelity", WFMU DJ William Berger is usually credited with popularizing the term in 1986.
context_section_description: With the emergence of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, some sectors of popular music began to espouse a DIY ethos that heralded a wave of independent labels, distribution networks, fanzines and recording studios, and many guitar bands were formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music instead of having to procure a record contract from a major label. Lo-fi musicians and fans were predominantly white, male and middle-class, and while most of the critical discourse interested in lo-fi was based in New York or London, the musicians themselves were largely from lesser metropolitan areas of the US.
  Since 1968, R. Stevie Moore had been recording full-length albums on reel-to-reel tape in his parents' basement in Tennessee, but it was not until 1976's Phonography that any of his recordings were issued on a record label. The album achieved some notoriety among New York's punk and new wave circles. Matthew Ingram of The Wire wrote that "Moore might not have been the first rock musician to go entirely solo, recording every part from drums to guitar ... However, he was the first to explicitly aestheticize the home recording process itself. ... making him the great-grandfather of lo-fi."  Asked if he supported the "DIY/lo-fi pioneer label", Moore answered: "I agree that I am or should be recognized as a pioneer, but that's mainly just happenstance, the fact that I was doing it so long ago, before it was such a popular modus operandi. ... I definitely had no 'plan' to rush and become known as the very first modern DIY pioneer." When a 2006 New York Times article referenced Moore as the progenitor of "bedroom pop", he responded that the notion was "hilarious" in light of his "bitter struggle to make a living and get some notoriety, I scoff at it."
  In 1979, Tascam introduced the Portastudio, the first portable multi-track recorder of its kind to incorporate an "all-in-one" approach to overdubbing, mixing, and bouncing. This technology allowed a broad range of musicians from underground circles to build fan bases through the dissemination of their cassette tapes. Music critic Richie Unterberger cited Moore as "one of the most famous" of the "few artists in cassetteland [that] established a reputation, if even a cult one." From 1979 until the early 1980s, Moore was a staff member on WFMU, hosting a weekly "Bedroom Radio" show. Berger's "Low-Fi" program followed thereafter, effectively to establish lo-fi as a distinct movement associated with the spirit of punk. JW Farquhar's home-recorded 1973 album The Formal Female, according to critic Ned Raggett, could also be regarded as a forerunner to "any number of" independent lo-fi artists, including R. Stevie Moore and the underground Texas musician Jandek.
  Throughout the 1980s, the indie rock spheres of the American underground (bands such as college radio favorite R.E.M.), along with some British post-punk, were the most prominent exports of lo-fi music. According to AllMusic, the stylistic variety of their tapes often "fluctuated from simple pop and rock songs to free-form song structures to pure noise and arty experimentalism." Similar scenes also developed among DIY cassette-trading hip-hop and hardcore punk acts. One of the most recognizable bands was Beat Happening (1984–1992) from K Records, an influential indie pop label. They were rarely known as a "lo-fi" group during their active years, and were only noted for their pioneering role in the movement after the term's definition evolved in the mid 1990s. Elsewhere, WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid was responsible for inventing and popularizing the "outsider music" category—much of it overlapping with lo-fi—which he championed in the 1980s. Adam Harper credits Daniel Johnston and Jandek with "form[ing] a bridge between 1980s primitivism and the lo-fi indie rock of the 1990s. ... both musicians introduced the notion that lo-fi was not just acceptable but the special context of some extraordinary and brilliant musicians."
caption: Calvin Johnson (pictured c. 2000s), founder of K Records and co-founder of Beat Happening
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