Written by Olivia Longoria. Graphic by Anna Porter.
Get out your fishnets, indie sleaze is back! This aesthetic originated in the 2000s during the height of model Kate Moss’s fame. The trend, in truth, was heroin chic. This was a dangerous time of glamorizing eating disorders and drug abuse. This trope would unfortunately influence media and fashion throughout the early 2000s. Characters like Effy from “Skins” were idolized for their tiny figure (allowing for the perfect oversized-sweater-falling-off-shoulder imagery), messy hair and falsely glamorous mental health ups and downs. In reality, mental health crises aren’t sexy, they’re serious, and you can’t have a full head of perfectly tussled hair if your diet is cigarettes and coffee like many of these on-screen characters depicted. But in 2010, something shifted: a new indie sleaze queen emerged and changed it for the better. Kesha!
Most people remember exactly where they were when they heard Kesha for the first time. “Your Love Is My Drug” was playing on every radio station, in every mall and on every family desktop computer, surrounded by a 14-year-old girl and her friends dancing. This era was grimy, carefree, last night’s eye makeup-wearing and fun. This wave of indie sleaze did not care about the size 2 agenda of the 90s but was defined by letting go, even if it’s messy. (If you’re just getting into Kesha, I suggest listening to these two criminally underrated songs, “Animal” and “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes.” Enjoy).
Now, we are experiencing a full-force indie sleaze revival, summoned by none other than Charlie XCX. Everyone knows, lived and loved “Brat” summer, but no one was ready for the complete remix album, featuring a collaboration with Kesha on the song “Spring Breakers.” This feature is particularly exciting and charged with girl power, because until 2023, Kesha was in a long-term legal battle with her former producer, Dr. Luke. To be able to emerge from that long and harrowing experience and land directly on stage with Charlie XCX while she’s grabbing the world by the throat is nothing short of badass.
This party-girl collaboration solidified the indie sleaze revival, but the signs have been there for nearly two years. The Dare’s viral song “Girls” came out in 2022, but didn’t gain traction until he produced “Guess” for Charlie XCX. A different (and key) element of today’s indie sleaze is inclusivity. Raunchy and equitable? It doesn’t get better than that. The Dare, in a sweaty suit, tells us “I like tall girls, small girls, girls with dicks” and “girls with no buns, girls that’s mean just for fun.” On “Spring Breakers” Kesha sings that, “art is not a competition,” while reminding everyone that she is the OG party girl. And of course, most notably, Lorde’s feature on “Girl, So Confusing,” directly addresses the media’s tendency to pit successful women against each other and may have healed all frenemies across the globe. The moral of today’s indie sleaze story is to come as you are (to the club), be yourself, and when needed, work it out on the remix.
