It was sometime in 2004 that I had The Awakening. The period that every music fan goes through where they realize that a lot of the music on the radio just isn't very good. I can't pinpoint it down to an exact date, or even an exact month. I just remember that as the year went along, my interest in mainstream music was rapidly waning. Bands like Three Days Grace and Good Charlotte, who I never loved, but at least thought were decent, had now become stale and pedestrian. So, I sought out music from other sources. A lot of it was old stuff, music you hear on classic rock radio, like Tom Petty and The Who in particular. Then I got into some old-school indie stuff, like The Replacements, and R.E.M.'s early IRS albums. A big part of my musical evolution came from posting on a message board that was really into a lot of indie bands that I had never heard of. What's a Neutral Milk Hotel? Who's this Olivia Tremor Control I keep hearing about? Why aren't Of Montreal actually from Montreal? These were the questions that made me want explore further, into more obscure music.

Still, it's not like I hated everything I heard on the radio. In early 2004, Modest Mouse broke through with their single "Float On," a jaunty, poppy little number that ranked among the best music released that year. It seemed impossible to not like. The thing is, I couldn't help but notice a bit of resentment when the song hit the airwaves. All the original Modest Mouse fans - or at least a lot of them - were upset at how quickly the mainstream audience had taken to the song. It was as thought hey were upset that the philistines of the music world had discovered their thing. "Ew, get your gross Nickelbackgerms away from my cool band!"
This was also around the time Death Cab For Cutie got really big thanks to their music being played on The O.C.. Suddenly, the teenage girls who were rocking out to Blink 182 and Box Car Racer now had "the Sound Of Settling" blaring from their iPods nonstop. The people who had been there from the moment Something About Airplanes was released no longer felt special.
It was from this that I realized that hatred of the mainstream wasn't about hating music; it was about hating a concept. Oh, sure Nickelback and the rest of their post-grunge ilk truly were awful, but that wasn't the reason modern rock radio drew so much ire from fans. There's a tendency to hate anything that becomes popular, to be underwhelmed by it. Just look at The Black Keys. Longtime indie darlings, they stopped being a secret when "Strange Times" became a radio hit in early 2008. Since then, they've only gotten bigger, as singles like "Howlin For You," and "Lonely Boy" have topped the charts. Now, the people who once thought the Keys were a breath of fresh air now find them boring. Is it because of a legitimate decline in their music, or is it because the Chad Kroger-loving masses have finally gotten in on the action. Well, considering how many quality tunes were on El Camino, I'd argue heavily for the latter.

I have no problem with loathing mainstream music, but only when it deserves it. When the bands being played on rock radio really are weak and uninspired - and a lot of them are - I'm more than happy to point that out. But let's not forget that just because a band breaks through, doesn't mean they stop being good. Instead of being sad that we "lost" one of our favorite bands to the masses, can't we be happy that they've found a new audience? When musicians whom we've admired for a decade finally get to be millionaires, shouldn't we be happy for them? I'm all for hating bland, commercial music, but let's not turn our backs on good music just because it happens to be popular.