surface indie

Refers to the surface level of indie music, it is for people that have just left the loop of mainstream top 40 music because of tiktok. Surface indie music fans think high of themselves as they think their music is uNdErGrOuNd or deserves more attention. They mostly prefer listening to individual songs on their chill out/aesthetic/pov playlists over albums. When you ask them to name their favourite artists, they can throw out a bunch of names. But in reality, they only know a few songs from each of the artists.

Typical examples include:
Clairo, Wallows, The Neighbourhood, Arctic Monkeys, Mother Mother, Mitski, Cavetown, Gorillaz, chloe moriondo, Mac DeMarco, girl in red, Nirvana, Beach Bunny, Chase Alantic, Cage the Elephant, Conan Gray, IDKHBTFM, Cigarettes After Sex, Sasha Alex Sloan, Lovejoy, Joji, Cuco, Glass Animals, Wilbur Soot, The 1975, Jeremy Zucker

A conversation over a social media platform...
user 1: OMG bestie! your music taste is exactly the same as mine MARRY ME
user 2: mitski lmao depressed sis

user 3: beach bunny is so underrated, glad someone finally appreciate their music
(woke) user 4: This is surface indie, stop acting surprised that someone is listening to these artists.