Hey there, this is Dustin Pangonis. If you read our local arts blog, you might recognize me. If you do read it and were glad to see a music blog without my name attached, sorry to disappoint you, but I'll be posting on this on now and again, too.

My column this week focuses on a bit of surprise: the Shins' third album, Wincing the Night Away, will debut as the second-best selling album in the country this week. In an era of weak album sales, this only took 118,00 units, but it's still the second biggest in the country, and still a bit of a surprise.

It's the best chart position ever for indie label Sub Pop records, which has released only one platinum album (Nirvana's Bleach) and one gold album (The Postal Service's Give Up.) But in an era when the lines between indie and major label are being blurred further and further, how much of a surprise is it?

While the Shins do well for themselves, they're certainly not pop stars. Yeah, they've got the O.C./Garden State thing going for them, but they don't have any hit singles or pop star image. In fact, I defy anyone but huge fans to tell me what the guys look like or pick them out of a sea of clean cut indie guys in t-shirts and jeans.

And for a genre that used to be defined by inaccessibility and quirkiness, that's a huge change. The Shins are indie mainly by virtue of their label; their music is fairly accessible, catchy guitar pop, and that's just gotten more straightforward on the new release. Their success isn't as bizarre as that of a group like Modest Mouse, but it's not as much of a no-brainer as an emo-skirting group like Death Cab, either.

I guess it worries me that a pretty average album (given a flat "C" by the other author of his blog, Kevin Doran) is becoming one of Sub Pop's greatest successes. It's safe to say the Shins won't go on to rock the music world like Nirvana. They don't have that unique charm of the Postal Service, or of countless other Sub Pop bands.

So how does something like this happen? For awhile, I was kind of excited by the growing interest in indie bands, but I think my interest in the style made me blind to the obvious: as with any type of music, the blander and less challenging you get, the more chance you'll have of mainstream success. The new record doesn't have anything on the first two, but it will sell tons, and they'll move to a major and probably water it down some more. When a band on Sub Pop sounds fine on the radio inbetween Coldplay singles, no wonder the term "indie" is losing all meaning.

--Dustin Pangonis