JUNK CULTURE

The Youth of the Y Generation are at a full advantage. Because they grew up with this thing called The Internet, luckily there's a ton of high-traffic music and fashion blogs boasting on a variety of subcultures and their relics of what to listen to, what to wear. "Back in the day" such incidentals used to be communicated through the stomping grounds of the Underground (small tape labels, independent boutiques, dive bars, Xerox zines, IRL conversation). Gradually our computers changed the climate, though not as dramatically and fantastically as '70s and '80s Futurism predicted.


The masses affection for late-era "emo" would be a huge factor in the attitudes of youth to come. The disposition to '90s and Noughts emo was a green light for pubescents to romanticize their "angst". Record-collecting nerds had been doing that in The New Stone Age 20 years before in a very similar context. Pairing persona philosophy (derived from musical subcultures) and taking it online set off large-scale sub-cultural emphasis on personal tragedy, iconography, obsession with personal experience. The online presence of teens and 20-somethings pushed those self obsessed brooders out of dark club corners and into a larger scale, a public commodity of the spectacle.



There was some revolt against the ridiculousness of "emo" but the case of Individuality remains. Counter-culturites are now more varied, building interests and aesthetic upon a VAST variety of influences, decades upon decades of time frames and ideologies to choose from. The sounds of now has gone to the other side of 10 years past. Music today often references shit from 20 (or more) years ago (the soft, whimsical, psychedelic, synthy, sometimes rowdy, flowery/feathery, naively AND offensively Native American garbed, Americana indied, classic rocky, weirdo quirky, surfy cool, stoner sludged and so on). In moving past "emo", we are blessed with more positive, witty, fun modes of musical vibes in the past 5 years alone. And our disposition has greatly improved to a more carefree frame of being but we uphold personal interest either way, a reflection of our times perhaps. We often attemp to create ourselves as entities instead of communities which can divide us gravely. Political music is less and less popular these days for a reason.


So the Internet made "underground" music more available and thus Indie Rock (vaguest term ever) becomes the definitive guitar-based music of the Noughts. Yes, it stands for "Independent" but you might as well file it under "Individual" (that's how varied the sounds are in the genre, if you can even say that genre still exists). Begin with Modest Mouse in the late '90s and end with Deerhunter in the recent years; there's so much more weirdness in between. Of course a few throwback genres conjured sonic sound updates. Garage rock and punk kids exist as they always have throughout every decade upholding the classic sound and structure of their songs. Metal kids, hardcore kids, classic rock kids:  all still abundant (same story of decades-long dialogue). On the ATL tip, bands like The Black Lips have brought fame to their continuation of garage rock (some of their shit might as well be a carbon-copy of Dwarves' first record) & Mastadon has done the same with metal. Most recent "genres" are hybrids:  collections of sounds mixed together, sub-sub-sub-genres mixed with a little of this and a bit of that. We love the past (as it's worth loving). This blender approach is the basis for the term "Junk Culture".


The Past holds so much (maybe too much!) relics of old school "modern" culture, now embedded in our daily lives switched from week to week whether it be in fashion, philosophy, waves of apathy, rituals for revolt, modes of political theory, endearing dispositions. Rock-related music has now spanned over 50 years so a shit ton of references abound: The Pixies in one riff, Slayer in the other, a bit of Peggy Moffitt on Johnny Jewel & Ida No's eyelashes, Nina Simone sighing into a harp, DB's covers by teenage boys in Wipers t-shirts. Junk Culture's Junkies fuse bits of inspiring bytes to create sub-cultural quilts of hefty proportions. I imagine it's a smorgasbord orgasm to inspire fun combos and make something "new"... well, sort of "new". Can "new" really exist now? Do we even want it to?


Most of all, even with inspiration, we're still pigeon-holed into waves of referencing the past COLLECTIVELY. It's funny that we all discover something at once (Kate Bush revival anyone?). So problematically, the Youth of the Y have not actually been taking full advantage of potential past relics through their Internet advantages because they are discovering the SAME THING. Even though their diapers were fused with the glue of The Internet and fusion has been the most useful tool in the Individuality software used by every teen circuit at crazy text-finger speed, the handful references to the past are still the same few variations. Sometimes it's more common for crews to be based on love for a past type of music than a current one (even though, get real, current music is based on past music anyway).



You might say that while nothing "new" exists, the collective consciousness is a scary de-progression, but perhaps nostalgic trends aren't so bad. It's more so the lack of awareness that is harmful to our sub-cultural rearing. A self-righteous world without a clue as to what they are doing has always made for negative happenings. I still can't help but wonder if we're some shitty Aldous Huxley prediction dumbed down; weren't humans always "dumbed down"? Is there a particular reason we're drawn to a past band or a hairstyle or a brand at the same time, even if the entity originally existed before we were even conceived? Are there certain vibes about these "things" that reflect on what we feel today, or how we wish we were?


It would be silly to say there aren't kids on the Internet discovering more obscure golden old shit. A YouTube wormhole is easy as hell to fall into. The sociological strangeness of it part is these kids not understanding or having a context. So it's re-discovered in tones and feels and somehow our attraction to Trisomie 21 or Suck covering Donovan becomes re-valued in a new light. However, the most successful understanding of the past should probably come with a true love and attachment for it. Grasping more solid concepts of musical history than the 5 second fame of genres that last as long as your browser's refresh button tends to help. Everyone has a band, everyone can get their band known on the Internet, your MP3 can be the popular song of the week, but what current music will really stick throughout time? Will there be Princes in Pop Music? Is T. Rex just a fossil of a time past? We would hope that musical success will not be measured by popularity or monetary gain alone and instead be measured by the transcendental glory of being able to use fusion in homage to bigger, better ghosts if we can't seem to create anything new.


If Marx is dead and Santa Claus is dad, then the old-school failed-kids trying to teach kids to fail themselves with expectations and Parent Culture methodologies are failing the world. I'm not the Summer Camp Club Counselor saying, "Youth got nothing to believe in!" But I am saying some pseudo-Christian Satan slipped them a handbook on how to build oneself as a God, baby Jesus with a Facebook page. Hollywood Babylon is booming; there are more aspirations to make $$$ off fame than skill/trade. Dress up as hippies, mods, punks, goths, stoners, skaters, greasers to identify with more exciting times from the past so we can be identified as a rebellion. Borrow from movements that borrow from the past but are plastic wrapped with new chemicals, sold to us for purchase with Bank of America debit cards. Enjoy Coca-Cola and cocaine with your Sleep vinyl. You can sleep when you're dead. Honestly, what is the best remedy for Teen U.S.A.? To delete music because there will be no real rock'n'roll tomorrow? Because progression no longer exists? Yet music exists and keeps us happy nonetheless. And the existence of loud sound is better than no loud sound at all.