In 1998, Richard Meltzer wrote that rock music "was possibly once needed, but that was before it was everywhere—when you didn’t hear it in supermarkets or coming out of every Mercedes at a stoplight—before 'rock-surround.' What we need now is to turn it off." The world where rock music is scarce is impossible for me to imagine, as that world had vanished before I was born. On the other hand, things that transitioned from scarcity to abundance during my lifetime, like the internet, are actually easier to imagine not existing, because I experienced both states. Having lived my entire life in what Meltzer calls "rock-surround," it's unfathomable that the music was ever something we didn't hear pretty much everywhere, and it's fun to imagine how that felt. For the same reason, it's also hard to relate to Meltzer's solution to the problem—turning the music off—because for me it's always been on. Rock music is just part of the landscape. My specific generation ("old millennial"), however, is more comfortable imagining some version of "turning off" the internet, or at least reducing its involvement in our lives, maybe because we remember life before it.
#87: Paleo Internet
#87: Paleo Internet
#87: Paleo Internet
In 1998, Richard Meltzer wrote that rock music "was possibly once needed, but that was before it was everywhere—when you didn’t hear it in supermarkets or coming out of every Mercedes at a stoplight—before 'rock-surround.' What we need now is to turn it off." The world where rock music is scarce is impossible for me to imagine, as that world had vanished before I was born. On the other hand, things that transitioned from scarcity to abundance during my lifetime, like the internet, are actually easier to imagine not existing, because I experienced both states. Having lived my entire life in what Meltzer calls "rock-surround," it's unfathomable that the music was ever something we didn't hear pretty much everywhere, and it's fun to imagine how that felt. For the same reason, it's also hard to relate to Meltzer's solution to the problem—turning the music off—because for me it's always been on. Rock music is just part of the landscape. My specific generation ("old millennial"), however, is more comfortable imagining some version of "turning off" the internet, or at least reducing its involvement in our lives, maybe because we remember life before it.