Thread by @patchdj

So, not to pick on John, but this take is actually wrong and OP is right. Because something catastrophic *did* happen to Gen X and the Xennial's music: the Telecommunication Act of 1996.

It's story time, kids... 1/

https://twitter.com/adr/status/1459998732506775554

1991–94 was one of the those rare periods where the critics and the public were in alignment: The music that was Good™ was the music getting airplay. (I'm mostly speaking grunge/alternative, but I believe this was also true of rap thanks to the East/West beef). 2/

Then Cobain dies and grunge becomes rudderless. (Eddie Vedder does NOT want the job.) Alternative music doesn't get bad though; it just gets weird. 3/

A&R guys had been throwing contracts at bands left & right trying to find the next big thing—even more so post-Cobain—and all those folks were now putting out records. And radio station music directors are throwing EVERYTHING at the wall to see what sticks. 4/

The fall of 1995 all by itself is BONKERS. Here's some of the songs you might have heard then (with a few bleeding into spring) from a radio show I did a few years ago. This is basically alternative radio chaos. 5/

And this goes on. True fact: In 1996, an MTV exec said, we've been looking at Europe, and this—you can almost picture his fingers making air quotes—"electronica" stuff is the next big thing... 6/

And the rock-listening public goes, "LOL we just heard Sublime and watched "Swingers," we're gonna do freaking SKA and SWING for the next two years." Electronic would have to wait till '98/99 when Big Beat broke through. 7/

But something else happens in 1996: the Telecommunications Act, which is good for a lot of things but loosens the restrictions on who can own how many stations where. 8/

Clear Channel goes on a buying spree, and this turns out to be Armageddon for rock radio. Suddenly one dude in Texas is programming nearly every alternative station in the country (or at least enough to dictate the tone for every1 else). Forget local scenesters bubbling up... 9/

...Or weirdos like Southern Culture on the Skids and Ween and Presidents of the USA getting airplay—you're getting pop punk, rap rock, and boy bands on repeat. Music CALCIFIES in 1999. You can even tell when it happens, b/c Enema of the State tops the charts seemingly 4EVER. 10/

And women DISAPPEAR from rock radio. COMPLETELY. Lilith Fair runs from 1997–1999 and puts out multiple double-CD collections; by 2001 you'd think no woman but Gwen Stefani and Meg White ever touched an instrument. An entire burgeoning folk-rock ecosystem gets snuffed out. 11/

Instead, over in pop we got Britney and Christina and the rest. Which is FINE...and I don't hate pop punk either (I love it actually) and nü-metal is...okayish... But that single Texan locus of musical control was NOT fine. 12/

& if you were a Gen Xer/Xennial (like me) who went off to, say, a rural liberal arts college in a cocoon of college radio in 1996, coming back to mainstream radio in summer of 2000 was like surveying the asteroid aftermath 65 million years ago—"Where'd all the T. rexes go?" 13/

Rock music NEVER recovers. Not really. It has a brief Stroke (see what I did there?) of resurgence in 2001 thanks to the White Stripes and the NYC scene, and a few Brooklyn breakouts over the next two decades... But these are coelacanths and possums, remnants of better days. 14/

Plenty of other stuff is wrong with music right now. The incubation system and studio gatekeeping labels used to provide is gone...which is good because production/publication has been democratized but bad bc no one is making $ and SOOOO many songs feel only 3/4s finished. 15/

And pop and hip hop's habit of using roughly the same 7 producers for YEARS at a time has glued those genres in sap on its way to becoming amber. (Trap music, for instance, needs to go. Desperately. If I never hear another hi-hat triplet I am FINE with that.) 16/

Those are issues for another day. But to go back to the original post, it is *totally* fair for Gen Xers to feel like something went terribly wrong. Because if your ideal era is 1991–1994, or even 1991-1997, something DID. 17/

As usual, the culprit was deregulation under capitalism.

And as usual, it's easier to point at each other and say, "You're doing it wrong/Get over it" when the proper response is, "Holy crap, you guys got screwed; here's a hug; I wonder how else we are getting screwed?" 18/fin

Postscript: Many people took away from this thread that I'm some curmudgeon who hates all music after 1996. I get why—my amusing myself with snarky notes on current issues led some folks astray—but I'm actually a HUGE new music advocate who does a WEEKLY new music show. 1/2

So if you loved my thread—and *especially* if you hated it and think I'm a miserable middle-aged white dude—I hope you'll check out my show and hear the reality. This link is good most weeks from Tuesday at 11 PM through Monday at midnight (US East): wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/… 2/2