Indie music in Taiwan has been excellent for many years now. It’s a very “outsider” scene anyway for young people here, so the music always sounds honest. There really isn’t much copying of other band’s sounds, or maybe I’m just out of the loop in that respect. But there are two kinds of rock bands here: pop-rock and indie/underground The former are apt to join Battle of the Band contests and promote themselves on TV whenever possible. The latter are usually more like hobbyists (and misfits?) who just want to try their best and don’t seem to care much about “success.” They’re the ones I like. The others probably do try to sound like Linkin Park etc.
At a recent 2-day festival in Taoyuan, Taiwan’s punkest punk band happened to be playing at the same time as New Pants from Beijing. The Taiwan band in question is LTK (濁水溪公社). I had seen LTK many times before, but they were actually trying hard this time (the singer even complained) because a much praised band from China was on at the same time. They’re very “anti-China” politically. It was hard to tear myself away and go watch New Pants for a while. I ended up only staying for 3 or 4 songs because I kept hearing bursts of LTK craziness floating across the field, and I went back to catch the end of their show. It wasn’t that New Pants sounded bad or anything. I was surprised by LTK’s pull that night, getting at least 40% of the crowd against New Pants. PM me your email and I’ll send you some LTK MP3s I happened to rip once.
So I think Taiwan more than holds its own in the world of indie rock music. But most of the good rock musicians really don’t realize just how good they are. When foreign bands visit Taiwan (more and more frequently) they are often blown away by the originality and honesty of the local bands.
Be sure to go to Spring Scream if here in March.
