The Indigo Girls are the long-time team of singer/songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. Veterans of the music industry, currently among the indie music scene, and often more notably of the Lilith Fair crowd, the two have produced a vast amount of intriguing, captivating, soothing and melodic sounds over the past two decades and counting.

From their roots in Decatur, Georgia, the pair began as the B-Band, and then Saliers and Ray. Both headed out to college out of state, but both came back home to Emory, reformed as the Indigo Girls, and went on to be signed by Epic Records. The arrangement lasted seventeen years. After a short stint with Hollywood Records, the group produced their first indie record in two decades with Poseidon and the Bitter Bug.

Staring Down the Brilliant Dream is a hand-picked two disc set, with the ladies choosing songs from live recordings over the past five years, focusing on moments and a mix of old and new, but more so, a selection of performances that were worthy of inclusion.

While the music is a decade away from the famous Lilith Fairs of 1997-99, which raised 10 million dollars for women’s charities in that time, there’s no way the Indigo Girls have left that style and music and politically-charged meaning behind. Their causes are a litany of left-wing subjects, from the environment and abolishing the death penalty to the rights of Native Americans and sexual orientation issues.

This isn’t a compilation of music that grabs the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd, but provides great songs and song-choices to showcase the live talent of the Indigo Girls. Along the way, they often include versions with guest artists like Michelle Malone and Brandi Carlile and Jill Hennessey and the group A Fragile Tomorrow, with the latter guests helping to move the song “Closer to Fine” on the final product.

Those of you fond and familiar with the Indigo Girls need no description of the band and their music. For those who don’t, my best approximation would be a combination of vocals reminiscent of Melissa Etheridge and Sarah McLachlan, a feminist bent much like Tori Amos, and a sound grounded more in bluegrass than anything else.

More than anything, their music is calming — despite the insights, the political commentary and the subject matter. They are excellent story-tellers, using words and music and a distinct perspective to lay bare their souls, and also the world as they see it.

Some people listen to music for inspiration, some for the message, some just to appreciate the creative output and the well-crafted artwork of superior singers and songwriters. The Indigo Girls can be taken at any of these levels, or all of them, but even a superficial listen leads you down a path of greater understanding and greater appreciation for what they are all about.

Several tracks really stood out to me, the first being the popular and aforementioned “Closer to Fine” on Disc 1. “Fly Away” on the first Disc is very memorable. Almost every album has those one or two songs that you can listen to repeatedly and this song was the magnetic one on Staring Down the Brilliant Dream.  “The birds of prey who wreck your nest/Twice your size steal your best/They set you on this course of your collision.” While so many of the songs roll together in that sense of live performances and consistency in output and message, this is one of several that shines.

“Shame on You” is the group’s most mainstream hit, coming on the heels of the Lilith Fairs, and gaining play on Top 40, adult contemporary Top 40 and adult alternative in 1999.

“Go” is a strong political tune, “You’re too old to care, You’re too young to count” is the strongest part of the message, while “go go go” is the chorus.

“Prince of Darkness” is an interesting perspective on the humdrum of a life dominated, likely by a paternalistic and domineering society, with the requisite railings against the normalcy of the rock-n-roll crowd. What’s fascinating is the spin with the not-exactly-hard rock undertones, but a deeper and more strongly felt message of alienation from that idyllic family.

In the end, it’s the most mainstream of the Indigo Girls catalog with “Wild Horses,” the cover of The Rolling Stones song, which to me is vastly superior to the original, with the haunting voices and seemingly more appropriate tone and sound. I mean, The Rolling Stones can do a level of mellow mixed with subtle undertones of whatever you want to read into it, but I doubt I’d ever envision Mick Jagger in the same vein as I can with the Indigo Girls (and Jill Hennessey notably on this version) singing the same words, realizing the depths of their meaning, attempting to understand the perspective that they are being felt with.

It’s a decidedly different twist on that song, and the covers of songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, the interactions with current greats like Pink and the harmonious and yet at times disenfranchised voices of Ray and Saliers are poignant in their artistry.

One motif of the collection is “fire” and several songs feature the imagery and references. Passion and fire are decidedly linked, and the Indigo Girls, if anything, are passionate to the core. The music is distinct, the style is equally so, and while the message sometimes takes a beaten path that is far too mainstream at the moment to be rebellious, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the music for itself.

At this point there are two elephants in the room: indie music and the “L” word.

Taking on the latter is a difficult premise in the PC age we live in. The overarching and dominant ideology in the mainstream media labels everything, and with the label, comes protection and the inability to criticize. I’ll be daring and simply avoid the label. Music is music, and appreciating the style and the artistry isn’t about commenting on the source and perspective. It’s about the final product.

While it is factually incorrect to call the Indigo Girls an indie band, since they were with Epic Records for nearly two decades, they certainly played the role. Indie bands play for the sake of their music, not for the sake of making money, churning out the hits or enjoying the limelight. Ray and Saliers flirted with Top 40 a few times and the enigmatic “adult alternative” label with a few songs, but this definitely wasn’t a mainstream group.

What I found fascinating in the press release was the focus on “moments” not success, the focus on the best available recordings, not just the ones that exemplified the most popular of their songs. Those attitudes explain a different approach to the industry.

Different is not being better or worse, but in the end, that sense of purity of their music rather than the mainstream acceptance of the songs. That’s a laudable but not lucrative approach. Whether that makes the music better or worse is ultimately debatable, but The Indigo Girls are definitely a penultimate inie band in that regard.