In October, these words appeared in Pitchfork. My opinions on these matters are well-known, at this point, and they are of course contestable. It’s also the case that this kind of framing has become so ubiquitous that it barely seems to reference the real world at all. And yet I would hope that anyone would be able to understand the confusion I felt when I read this. By which I mean, what are indie records? What is “indie”? Which acts are indie acts? What is being referred to, here? Indie rock no longer exists, in 2024. There is no scene. Williamsburg at this point is like a neighborhood-sized artisan coffee shop where the napkins are ethically sourced and the labor non-union. There are no cool clubs anywhere keeping the flame burning, not sufficiently to produce albums that people actually listen to, anyway. No remotely plugged-in person under the age of 50 who’d like to be perceived as fuckable would openly claim to like “indie records.” In the mid-2020s that’s like saying that you’re a fan of the Confederacy. Someone recently emailed to say that when I write about poptimism, I’m just grinding out culture war the way I accuse others of doing. But as I said to him, “culture war” implies multiple sides. Culture war

“This is the sort of thing that became Pitchfork’s stock in trade, this confused muddle of politics and pop, stuffed with trendy terms from cultural studies and the insistence that liking music was a form of activism.”