And then, you know, these End of Year Lists — they’re all very Oscars, aren’t they, with more bookish jokes and less interesting clothes and no red carpet. Always-looking-over-the-shoulder taste-jockeying in service of Big Bucks capital. All good fun, and very pop in the sense of popular, but much to munch on if meaning-of-taste munching is your thing.

Terry Gross should have read your book. And taken it to heart. Reading her made me kind of wish that you’d expand the Celine book into something Bigger and Un-ignore-able by the, you know, the taste-makers, the taste-makers beyond rock-and-pop-ville. But only if you want to!

Whoa.

Crime!

* Matt: That’s why I put “underground” in quotes when referring to Azerrad’s quote, but it’s not so much a question of what’s the most vital (in whomever’s pov) but what’s most acclaimed, semi-popular etc., coming off the P&J. Good point about the rude health of noisy aggression though. (I’m ignoring the stuff about Sonic Youth, Mission of Burma and whatever you’re trying to imply about whose pocket Azerrad’s in.)

* Matthew: Similarly, I’m not judging what’s progressive about the bands or the music, but more about the tenor of their reception, and certainly not what side they’re on politically - referring it to politics is really meant as a shorthand. And even the use of “mainstream” was just responding to Azerrad’s comment; likely I shouldn’t have accepted his terms, but this was a quick quote-and-reply rather than a full dissection.

* JD: Same reason as every year. I’ve never been invited.

I think people truly forget that, at its heart, a lot of really huge pop music phenomena in the 00’s had an aspirational tone to it. The rise of American Idol and its imitators, pop country, glam hip-hop.

Indie on the other hand has a white collar reputation as of late. Its the domain for young professors, authors, city dwelling, and officer workers. Not typically people are going to express anger and resentment in large doses.

However, as you point out, it’s mostly guesswork, and that’s why I get itchy when people connect this with politics. Because eventually it turns music criticism into a way to separate the sheep and the goats (this band is politically good and this one is politically bad). The progressive politics of music should be that enjoying it is an unalloyed good, or else we flirt with censorship.

Or let’s flip the politics around: Maybe AC reached the top because its NPR-ish unifying qualities are exactly the sort of thing people need to deal with the inhuman amount of information we are immersed in. With the downfall of the mainstream, perhaps people crave music that is warm and genuine and familiar, and that doesn’t involve a flame war or a tea party - the tyranny of the fringe. As anyone on the Internet knows, you can’t fight a flame war - you can only try to be positive and move on.