Hey, maybe they just like it!

I am this close to tearing down my Ramones poster in a fit of violence.

I'll take his word that this is (was?) a real phenomenon. I'm assuming that in that case it's something going on in indie rock circles, the only context in which this essay would even make sense. In that case, it may be a case of anti-backlash backlash. In the 80s and 90s, indie might have distinguished itself from the rock mainstream (which did treat classic rock as, well, classic) by shunning 70s AOR as a potential influence base. It was a way of marking oneself as different/original and of challenging oneself to find new influences since classic rock and its descendents were everywhere (sort of like making a point out of not using synths in the 80s) -- it was too obvious of an influence base maybe? At least when I was involved in indie rock as a musician (though not a connoisseur-listener) in the 90s (even if it was just in a shitty teenage Ottawa band), that's how it seemed to me. For some other people, it was even simpler - they had either just never really grown up liking that music and associated it with a mainstream culture they wanted to define themselves against or else they did grow up with it but grew to like it less than other things. Except that this sort of backlash may have seemed to go too far and just led to a new stifling orthodoxy where it was taboo to refer to regular classic rock music as an influence base - which may have led to a backlash against the backlash -> a lot of the indie rock people I met in Montreal in 2001/2002 (by which point I had no connection to that 'scene' anymore really) were all about picking out their favourite Thin Lizzy and Genesis records. But this is mostly conjecture on my part since, as i said, I haven't really had any real involvement with indie since I was a teenager, when perceptions are kinda skewed anyway.

Attempting to dignify this essay with serious consideration

But can't you always just argue that maybe people checked out the music (maybe after ignoring it for a while), enjoyed it, and started listening to it more? How can you attribute peoples tastes to backlashes, hipster trends, and self-definition without even knowing them? Or, for that matter, even if you did know them?

Or, is it OK to do this when you're talking about a mass of (obviously detestable) anonymous hipsters?

Reading this article reminded me of my initial reaction to Britney's intense popularity among ILM list voters. I read into it as some kind of "statement" - hip/anti-hip, anti-rockist, popist, ironic, populist... something. And I was shown that sometimes people just like the music, whether I think it's great or shitty, fun or boring, etc. So I guess I just see an article like this as utterly pointless. It's time better spent doing, well, almost anything else, but reviewing music would be an appropriate substitute.

Credit to him for recognizing/predicting this, thumbs down for dismissing entire genres in one sentence.

The Book of Taliesyn!!!!

I WIN!