The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: The 00s, Part 3 – The Return of Rock
In times of crisis, we look for a leader, someone who can get us out of trouble. This is a tope of every comic book universe movie and half of all the action-adventure stuff.
But it’s true. When things are bad, we first look to people with experience, with knowledge, with the strength to lead us away from whatever is wrong.,
There was a lot of this sort of talk amongst rock fans at the end of the 1990s. Pop, electronica, and hip-hop had taken over. Rock itself had fallen into the doldrums and every dan was hoping, praying that someone or something would come along and inject some new life into the genre.
But as hopeless as some people may have felt, sometimes you just gotta be patient. A couple of things inevitably happen when it seems that rock is on the ropes.
First, a new generation of young people inevitably decides to take matters into their own hands and kickstart things themselves. We saw this with the indie revolution that began taking hold in the very late 90s and then exloded for the next decade.
Second, trends and cycles in music and demographics eventually start to work in favour of the music you like. For the previous 50 years, when rock was on the descent, pop was on the ascent and vice-versa. By the early 2000s, the cycle had come around again, meaning it was time for that polar shift in the pubic’s taste.
And third, sometimes, the old guard needs a little time to catch their breath, to take the lay of the land, and to figure out what their next moves should be. If they do it right, their careers move into a new phase, a new act.
This is exactly what happened in the first half of the first decade of the 21st century. And the results were amazing.
Songs on this show:
- Incubus, Pardon Me
- Linkin Park, In the End
- U2, Beautiful Day
- RHCP, By the Way
- Foo Fighters, Times Like These
- Nine Inch Needs, The Hand That Feeds
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maps
Eric Wilhite has created a playlist for this episode.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7
- Live 88-5/Ottawa
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener
- FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
- Power 97/Winnipeg (Sunday nights at 11)
- Rock 97.7/Grand Prairie – Sunday nights at 6.
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
- The Zone/Victoria
- The Fox/Vancouver
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown The show runs at 11 am Sunday. This, by the way, is a great option for American listeners who are prevented from listening to the show live because of geo-blocking,
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
If you ever miss a show, you can always get the podcast edition available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your on-demand audio.
