round April 2004, the landscape of mainstream American music was shifting. When the Billboard was dominated by perennial chart-toppers like Usher, Norah Jones and Outkast, there was an emergence of unlikely groups to gain notoriety.
Modest Mouse, a band whose career started in 1996 and whose style remained mostly unchanged since then, gained sudden popularity with the April release of “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.” The group’s albums were consistently off-the-mark with concern to accessibility. Anyone who had been following their career would have been surprised after their explosion in popularity and equally confused. Increased public interest is common for groups who have grand renovations in style. But for groups who never alter their sound, the migration to popular radio is much more arbitrary.
A different case is Franz Ferdinand, whose self-titled first album was released around the same time and also gained a lot of airplay. For a debut album of admittedly radio-friendly songs, fans of the band after the album’s release were also unexpecting of their popularity. The group’s video for “Take Me Out” was often sandwiched between Ashanti and Ja Rule for top video spots on MTV.
Around this time, the term “independent rock” seemed a little less inclusive. College campuses have always been breeding grounds for new musical movements. For example, college students got “High” with Afroman long before the rest of the population was exposed to his stoner-rap. And bands like OAR and Dave Matthews Band have had big boosts in sales among college students.
The video channel MTVU has had a big impact on the merging of underground and mainstream music culture. Now, it is likely for students to watch an English grime-rapper Dizzee Rascal video right before the new Lil’ Jon video. And videos for the Zutons, Bright Eyes, and soon-to-be Decemberists can be seen between more typical stadium rock bands like Hoobastank and Switchfoot.
This change has an effect on the ever-present idea of sex appeal. College and high school girls once ogled Usher and Justin Timberlake, but now Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and Ben Gibbard (lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service) are becoming objects of affection. And along with Britney Spears or Mandy Moore making guys’ mouths water, it’s Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley.
If this cultural shift means anything, it could mean that our generation is able to blend not only different generations of music into contemporary music, like Interpol (new wave), The Music (80’s pop) and The Black Keys (blues), but also matching music types of different popularities.
If a David Bowie collaboration with Busta Rhymes and R.E.M. featuring Q-Tip can happen, there seems to be no rules about the limits of generational and genre-mixing in modern music. Who knows what’s next? Maybe a Bob Dylan/Kanye West split album, with a resurrected guest vocal track by Johnny Cash and production by Timberland?
Is the cultural shift a planned movement by record executives willing to make a pretty penny from the music-drenched public? Or is it our generation making music and listening to it with all-inclusive open minds? I’d like to think it’s the latter, and I hope it turns out well.
Alex Fontana is a freshman news-editorial major from Richmond.
The opinions expressed in this commentary do not reflect the opinions of the Herald or the university.
.