Ican say with authority that nobody who was young and cool in the 2000s, or who thought of themselves as such, ever used the phrase “indie sleaze” in real time. And yet the term has been widely adopted to describe a time that feels both like yesterday and 1,000 years ago: the early 21st-century indie music boom.

In his new book “Such Great Heights: A Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion,” the music writer Chris DeVille points out, correctly, that “Sometimes language or a single word comes along and retrospectively sums up a movement’s whole vibe,” even if the scene’s participants haven’t signed off on it.

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