Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day (or Columbus Day, depending on where you're reading). This post about the triumph of poptimism originally ran this summer for paid subscribers.
It’s a sign of the times that what used to be called different tastes in music is now cast as eliminationist warfare between two ideologies which are — different tastes in music.
"At my high school in New York in the 90s, there were basically three kinds of people: the kids who listened to the Top 40 station Z100, the ones who preferred Hot 97 playing rap and hip-hop, and those (like me) who listened to 92.3 K-Rock."
I'm ten years ahead of you, High School class of 1991 from New Jersey.
Instead of contemporary Indie Rock, 92.3 K-Rock at that time was classic rock, overwhelmingly late 60s and 70s rock, with some early 80s if it was still rock. And it was my station for that. Because my high school years 87-91 were particularly musically impoverished, especially as I wasn't paying attention to the British alternative stuff. Z100 was like *simultaneously* the Top 40 station and the hip-hop and forgettable R&B and pop station. Like Paula Abdul and Taylor Dane time. I didn't hear a lot of that stuff again until my work cafeteria a couple decades later, where I slotted it as "9th grade school bus music".
Not mentioned (either because you're a little bit younger than me or you just didn't consider it noteworthy) was Q104.3, which for a brief moment from 1993-1996 was a metal/hard rock station (that was my favorite, though I listened to all the ones you listed as well as WBAB).
104.3 was classical music before the switch to metal in 1993 and switched to classic rock in 1996, as I guess metal was not a big draw.
Am I the only person who finds the juxtaposition of Tibetan freedom activists and indie rock fans under the heading "Wrong Side of History" to be a category error?
Tibetan freedom is a question of morality/ethics. It's about an ethnic group that is suffering oppression and destruction of its traditional culture. Obviously it didn't work out that way, but I can't blame activists in the early 2000s for believing that this was the equivalent of apartheid in South Africa: once the world awakens to the injustice, rich countries will boycott and put diplomatic pressure on China, and then there will be, if not independence, then at least more freedom from oppression for Tibetans!
In contrast, indie rock vs. pop is a question of taste, and as such, it is morally neutral. Preferring Arcade Fire does not make you either morally superior or morally inferior to a die-hard Taylor Swift fan.
Signed, a weirdo who had very little interest in either indie rock or pop in high school, and instead listened to a bunch of "world music" her parents favored (I had an extensive collection of Putumayo CDs that I loved. Anyone else here a fan of Deep Forest? Anyone?).
ETA: Ok, ok, I'll admit to having a nostalgia-driven soft spot for Backstreet Boys and Savage Garden. "I wanna staaaand with you on a mountain, I wanna baaathe with you in the sea... I wanna liiiive like this foreveeeeer, until the sky falls down on meeeeee..." That was almost 30 years ago! God, I'm getting old.
I listened to Putamayo CDs too. Matthew Yglesias has very little sympathy for ethnic groups who don’t have their own state. It’s part of the reason he wrote One Billion Americans, doesn’t care about the Crimean Tatars and is relatively pro-Russian. On this I think he is relatively consistent. There are a lot of people who care about one ethnic group getting its own state and cultural autonomy but turn into rabid imperialists for other ethnic groups. Try bringing up Assyrians or Kurds or Armenians with Turks who will go on forever about their support for Palestine.
The major music trend of this century is the rise of female artists on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. This has moved music toward pop and away from rock. Does this mean that any rock revival will be driven by female? Keep an eye on Wet Leg, The Warning, and Olivia Rodrigo.
In my experience there are a bunch of music fans today who know lots of the classic alternative albums from the 1990s and early 2000s, even if they were too young to listen to it at the time. When I meet people who are around 30 and pretty into music, it's very likely that they are pretty familiar with Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Metric, etc. I'm not convinced that the alternative music of that era isn't regarded with the same kind of historical appreciation as the music of the 70s was in the 90s.
I don't think your comment about Kandahar is right FYI. The Macedonian Empire was ruled by an ethnic elite of Greek and Greek adjacent peoples but the populations and administrative structures were always Persian once you got East of the Bosphurus. So the demographic situation was probably a large Iranic population ruled over by an ethnically Greek elite. Taliban rule is actually a case of locals outlasting the conquerors.
Popular music is definitely generational, not a "wave of history" -- your description of DC music venues is not so different from what I remember as a white college grad male here in DC in the early-to-mid '70s -- and that spans at least two subsequent generations -- by the third generation it's not too surprising that it should change. My Apple Music playlists still mostly contain the music I loved back in the day ... not current stuff!
I agree on three of those (see my re-post reply to evan bear re not knowing what Matt is talking about), but I'll defend Metric as being moderately successful around 2010 (their albums Fantasies (2009) and Synthetica (2012) did OK in the US -- Fantasies peaked at 76 and Synthetica peaked at 12 on the Billboard 200 -- which also coincided with them providing music for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soundtrack in 2010).
One thing that struck me rereading this article. There’s a note about how American rock and roll is, then a discussion about the Clash and The Rolling Stones, which are English bands.
A quick observation: I don't believe in the "Great Replacement Theory" B.S., and I'm fine with getting rid of Columbus Day as a holiday (like Bjorn, as an inland American, the only experience I have of Columbus Day is not getting mail delivery or being able to contact the clerk's office at the federal court), but progressives do themselves literally no favors on mobilizing the paranoid conspiracy front against them when they make a direct substitution of Progressive Thing™ for Conservative Thing™.
I too struggle to think of a debate more emblematic of the navel gazing our society seems to be stuck in. For me that includes both the seeming lack of awareness by conservatives standing up for a relic of yesterday's identity politics and the argument that it should be replaced by a celebration of the increasingly strange notions a certain type of progressive harbors about the peoples of the America's pre-European contact and their descendants over the next few centuries.
Which isn't to say I'm not open to the argument that it's a little weird in 2025 to have a holiday in honor of someone whose connection to the US is at best indirect. But you also have to be pretty high on your own supply to think it should be replaced with all these idiosyncratic performances of collective guilt and ahistorical understandings of the past.
I think celebrating the arrival of Western people in our Western eventually-country is worthwhile - Columbus didn't set foot in the US I don't believe, but it is what it is...Jesus was also not born in December.
I'm not opposed to a separate day in remembrance of the indigenous cultures who were mostly wiped out by our arrival. Both of these things have value.
On the flip side, the rightoids do their own “Indigenous Peoples Day” with things like “Intelligent Design,” the 1776 response to 1619 Project, Conservapedia, etc.
That's really straining. "Intelligent design" is the only one of those things that I can begin to plausibly imagine being described as a "direct substitute." The latter two are (1) expressly framed as rebuttals (even the most hardcore rightoids aren't going around claiming the 1619 Project and Wikipedia don't exist) and (2) treated with pure contempt by any form of mainstream discourse.
Wow, sorry, I didn't think that was harsh enough of a reply to merit being blocked (my first ever block by another SB user, to the best of my knowledge), but I wish you well!
My solution to the Gordian knot: Get rid of Columbus day, make official Leif Erikson day as a rebranded Explorer's day, make the day after Thanksgiving officially Native Heritage day, and name a holiday after an Italian American in March, April, or August. My vote would be for Enrico Fermi but I think Colorado went with America's first Catholic saint.
As a Coloradoan, I can confirm that Mother Cabrini Day is indeed a thing and, as a lawyer, I can confirm that it makes keeping track of court holidays in October annoying, since the state courts are now closed on the first Monday of the month, while federal courts are closed on the second Monday of the month.
I’ve been reading Slo Bo for, what, a week? full Dopamine engaged. I don’t care what you write, just fucking just do.
Why is he a hero? Genuinely asking
It’s a sign of the times that what used to be called different tastes in music is now cast as eliminationist warfare between two ideologies which are — different tastes in music.
"At my high school in New York in the 90s, there were basically three kinds of people: the kids who listened to the Top 40 station Z100, the ones who preferred Hot 97 playing rap and hip-hop, and those (like me) who listened to 92.3 K-Rock."
I'm ten years ahead of you, High School class of 1991 from New Jersey.
Instead of contemporary Indie Rock, 92.3 K-Rock at that time was classic rock, overwhelmingly late 60s and 70s rock, with some early 80s if it was still rock. And it was my station for that. Because my high school years 87-91 were particularly musically impoverished, especially as I wasn't paying attention to the British alternative stuff. Z100 was like *simultaneously* the Top 40 station and the hip-hop and forgettable R&B and pop station. Like Paula Abdul and Taylor Dane time. I didn't hear a lot of that stuff again until my work cafeteria a couple decades later, where I slotted it as "9th grade school bus music".
As last time, shout out to Travis Morrison and D Plan!
Not mentioned (either because you're a little bit younger than me or you just didn't consider it noteworthy) was Q104.3, which for a brief moment from 1993-1996 was a metal/hard rock station (that was my favorite, though I listened to all the ones you listed as well as WBAB).
104.3 was classical music before the switch to metal in 1993 and switched to classic rock in 1996, as I guess metal was not a big draw.
>Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day (or Columbus Day, depending on where you're reading).
Canadian Thanksgiving: what am I, chopped liver?
Am I the only person who finds the juxtaposition of Tibetan freedom activists and indie rock fans under the heading "Wrong Side of History" to be a category error?
Tibetan freedom is a question of morality/ethics. It's about an ethnic group that is suffering oppression and destruction of its traditional culture. Obviously it didn't work out that way, but I can't blame activists in the early 2000s for believing that this was the equivalent of apartheid in South Africa: once the world awakens to the injustice, rich countries will boycott and put diplomatic pressure on China, and then there will be, if not independence, then at least more freedom from oppression for Tibetans!
In contrast, indie rock vs. pop is a question of taste, and as such, it is morally neutral. Preferring Arcade Fire does not make you either morally superior or morally inferior to a die-hard Taylor Swift fan.
Signed, a weirdo who had very little interest in either indie rock or pop in high school, and instead listened to a bunch of "world music" her parents favored (I had an extensive collection of Putumayo CDs that I loved. Anyone else here a fan of Deep Forest? Anyone?).
ETA: Ok, ok, I'll admit to having a nostalgia-driven soft spot for Backstreet Boys and Savage Garden. "I wanna staaaand with you on a mountain, I wanna baaathe with you in the sea... I wanna liiiive like this foreveeeeer, until the sky falls down on meeeeee..." That was almost 30 years ago! God, I'm getting old.
I listened to Putamayo CDs too. Matthew Yglesias has very little sympathy for ethnic groups who don’t have their own state. It’s part of the reason he wrote One Billion Americans, doesn’t care about the Crimean Tatars and is relatively pro-Russian. On this I think he is relatively consistent. There are a lot of people who care about one ethnic group getting its own state and cultural autonomy but turn into rabid imperialists for other ethnic groups. Try bringing up Assyrians or Kurds or Armenians with Turks who will go on forever about their support for Palestine.
The major music trend of this century is the rise of female artists on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. This has moved music toward pop and away from rock. Does this mean that any rock revival will be driven by female? Keep an eye on Wet Leg, The Warning, and Olivia Rodrigo.
In my experience there are a bunch of music fans today who know lots of the classic alternative albums from the 1990s and early 2000s, even if they were too young to listen to it at the time. When I meet people who are around 30 and pretty into music, it's very likely that they are pretty familiar with Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Metric, etc. I'm not convinced that the alternative music of that era isn't regarded with the same kind of historical appreciation as the music of the 70s was in the 90s.
I don't think your comment about Kandahar is right FYI. The Macedonian Empire was ruled by an ethnic elite of Greek and Greek adjacent peoples but the populations and administrative structures were always Persian once you got East of the Bosphurus. So the demographic situation was probably a large Iranic population ruled over by an ethnically Greek elite. Taliban rule is actually a case of locals outlasting the conquerors.
Sort of. The story of the Hazaras is that they are the remnant of Mongol armies in Afghanistan.
Popular music is definitely generational, not a "wave of history" -- your description of DC music venues is not so different from what I remember as a white college grad male here in DC in the early-to-mid '70s -- and that spans at least two subsequent generations -- by the third generation it's not too surprising that it should change. My Apple Music playlists still mostly contain the music I loved back in the day ... not current stuff!
To lend credit to MY’s thesis here: I have never heard of any of these bands “ The Kills, Lykke Li, Metric, or TV on the Radio”
I agree on three of those (see my re-post reply to evan bear re not knowing what Matt is talking about), but I'll defend Metric as being moderately successful around 2010 (their albums Fantasies (2009) and Synthetica (2012) did OK in the US -- Fantasies peaked at 76 and Synthetica peaked at 12 on the Billboard 200 -- which also coincided with them providing music for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soundtrack in 2010).
Sure, haven’t seen the movie.
One thing that struck me rereading this article. There’s a note about how American rock and roll is, then a discussion about the Clash and The Rolling Stones, which are English bands.
After 1960 every leading movement in rock (British Invasion, psychedelic, prog, punk) until grunge was English. For whatever reason.
Some of this might be because more American rock gets labeled as country.
“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”
A quick observation: I don't believe in the "Great Replacement Theory" B.S., and I'm fine with getting rid of Columbus Day as a holiday (like Bjorn, as an inland American, the only experience I have of Columbus Day is not getting mail delivery or being able to contact the clerk's office at the federal court), but progressives do themselves literally no favors on mobilizing the paranoid conspiracy front against them when they make a direct substitution of Progressive Thing™ for Conservative Thing™.
It's a "well actually..." In the form of a federal holiday. That never goes down well.
I too struggle to think of a debate more emblematic of the navel gazing our society seems to be stuck in. For me that includes both the seeming lack of awareness by conservatives standing up for a relic of yesterday's identity politics and the argument that it should be replaced by a celebration of the increasingly strange notions a certain type of progressive harbors about the peoples of the America's pre-European contact and their descendants over the next few centuries.
Which isn't to say I'm not open to the argument that it's a little weird in 2025 to have a holiday in honor of someone whose connection to the US is at best indirect. But you also have to be pretty high on your own supply to think it should be replaced with all these idiosyncratic performances of collective guilt and ahistorical understandings of the past.
I think celebrating the arrival of Western people in our Western eventually-country is worthwhile - Columbus didn't set foot in the US I don't believe, but it is what it is...Jesus was also not born in December.
I'm not opposed to a separate day in remembrance of the indigenous cultures who were mostly wiped out by our arrival. Both of these things have value.
On the flip side, the rightoids do their own “Indigenous Peoples Day” with things like “Intelligent Design,” the 1776 response to 1619 Project, Conservapedia, etc.
The canonical example here is Alabama and Mississippi observing the Robert E Lee state holiday on MLK Day.
That's really straining. "Intelligent design" is the only one of those things that I can begin to plausibly imagine being described as a "direct substitute." The latter two are (1) expressly framed as rebuttals (even the most hardcore rightoids aren't going around claiming the 1619 Project and Wikipedia don't exist) and (2) treated with pure contempt by any form of mainstream discourse.
What a rude reply. I’ll never make the mistake of writing to you again.
Wow, sorry, I didn't think that was harsh enough of a reply to merit being blocked (my first ever block by another SB user, to the best of my knowledge), but I wish you well!
“my first ever block by another SB user”
Hold your head high.
My solution to the Gordian knot: Get rid of Columbus day, make official Leif Erikson day as a rebranded Explorer's day, make the day after Thanksgiving officially Native Heritage day, and name a holiday after an Italian American in March, April, or August. My vote would be for Enrico Fermi but I think Colorado went with America's first Catholic saint.
And while we’re rearranging holidays - can we finally move to “Independence Day - Observed” for years when the 4th of July falls on a Wednesday?
Day after Thanksgiving as Native Heritage Day is a great idea but we're too capitalist to get rid of Black Friday.
Friday before Memorial or Labor Day would create a nice 4 day weekend.
Also Garibaldi, who lived in New York.
Garibaldi Day has a slight conflict on the calendar for American holidays . . . .
Make it another day then. Doesn’t have to be his birthday
Enrico Fermi, Ugo Fano, there are so many.
As a Coloradoan, I can confirm that Mother Cabrini Day is indeed a thing and, as a lawyer, I can confirm that it makes keeping track of court holidays in October annoying, since the state courts are now closed on the first Monday of the month, while federal courts are closed on the second Monday of the month.