You're talking about basically the only American subculture dominated by working class whites in which anti-black racism is not tolerated, let alone celebrated.
People who talk like you often pride themselves on being "brutally honest," but curiously seem to be much more interested in the brutality than in the honesty.
I think Albini would rather be remembered as a guy who made and recorded really fucking good rock records and advocated for destroying the corporate domination of music than as a guy who said "f****t" a lot and named a band Rapeman.
I had this shirt when I was in my early 20s, as well as "I LIKED YOU BETTER BEFORE YOU SOLD OUT"
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0016/9762/products/nothingshirt800_1024x1024.gif
Higgs has the most delightfully ridiculous voice, and damn if the combination of '10s tropical-house/dancehall sounds with these lyrics ("How did I get this blood all over me? I've got the pictures here on my phone") isn't perfect. Love love love this band, and wish they could be a lot bigger in the US.
Everything is more meaningful when you're 18. This is entirely the result of neurochemistry and has absolutely fuck-all to do with the rest of the world, and yet people completely fail to understand that and make all manner of decisions--especially political ones--based on the perceived decline of things since their late adolescence.
"Mainstream rock" is a dead scene, is the bottom line.
It's worth noting that the biggest swing acts from its late '30s/WWII-era heyday were still doing serious numbers in terms of both record sales and box office receipts well into the 1960s: they just were completely irrelevant to anyone under the age of 40.
I recall having heard "Wasting My Time" an awful lot on the PA at Walmart Supercenter #844 in the summer of 2001, but now I wonder if my brain's playing tricks on me. I do recall that everything about it--especially the video--was the very definition of generic.
I remember the principal at Channahon Junior High, a hardass named Tom Lesniak, giving a speech at an all-school assembly about the kids who--through sins of both commission and omission--fail to get out of towns like Channahon. Now, Mr. Lesniak's politics were slightly to the right of Pinochet, and yet he completely understood that the lifeblood of any town of any size is people getting life experiences outside of it and bringing their intellectual capital there. This is something that the Trumpist right fails to understand, and instead insists that the rest of the world provide these places with high-wage employment.
At times, your geriatric millennial may erupt into nonsensical babble, like “doggo,” “smol,” or “Hootie and the Blowfish.” Redirect the conversation by asking them where they were on 9/11.
Rachel, do you actually know anyone who listens to these bands? 'Cuz I do, or at least I did: they're the guys I went to middle school with who never left Channahon, IL. You can swap out the name of just about any small Midwestern or Northeastern municipality on the rural fringe of a major urban area for Channahon, and that's yr fanbase for these bands right there.
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