Civilization 1

The Gen Y – Millennial Gap

A commenter on yesterday's post writes: I don’t quite know what to say. I’m a millennial, and one who has hardly heard a song from the 80s (That I was aware of) but when I heard that last song on your list I felt… Something. It wasn’t nostalgia, it was……
January 17, 20239 Comments
80sNot80s

80s Not 80s

One strange aftereffect of Cultural Ground Zero has been the rise of the retrowave musical aesthetic. Like the PulpRev in fiction, this movement doesn't so much embrace a genre as an earlier state of the art - in retrowave's case, the 1980s. To a member of Generation Y, the phenomenon…
January 16, 202334 Comments
deconstruction

The Death of Metal

Members of older generations have taken to lamenting the musical taste - or lack thereof - displayed by Generation Z. It's easy to understand why. Every generation from the Boomers to the Millennials was raised on rock & roll. That definitive American music genre not only served as a cross-generational…
July 28, 202217 Comments
NoLifeWithoutLove

Without Love, There is No Life

New Ben Zwycky music video just dropped. Watch now!   Forge your legend in a world of brutal mech combat. Play the Combat Frame XSeed Roleplaying game now!
February 14, 20225 Comments
Surveying Aftermath

Surveying the Aftermath

The mere act of listening to music from before the late 90s and after makes Music Ground Zero so evident that even pop cultists are starting to notice. NB: As you read the following, keep in mind that this is the bio of the account that tweeted it:   Observe…
November 16, 202114 Comments
U2 Godzilla

Defusing the Pop Bomb 2

Folks seemed to enjoy my previous look at what might have been if Cultural Ground Zero hadn't happened. Today felt like as good a time as any for a second glimpse at an alternate timeline, but instead of vide games, this "what if?" will focus on the music industry. Specifically,…
July 8, 20217 Comments
Hetfield Shopping

More Music Ground Zero

In case you missed it, author and musician David V. Stewart recently did a couple of videos in which he ranked heavy metal albums. One video ranked Metallica's discography, while the follow up graded Megadeth's catalogue (on the front end of his Final Fantasy V stream). Both are highly worth watching.…
June 7, 202118 Comments

Beato Finds What He’s Looking For

Veteran record producer and audio engineer Rick Beato helped lay more of the groundwork for Cultural Ground Zero theory - at least in the music sphere - than any other pop culture observer. In particular, he contributed the crucial datum that rock & roll died in 1996. The cause of…
May 20, 2021
Y2K Music Curse

Y2K Music Curse

In response to yesterday's post, reader Scott W.  solicits learned opinions on music producer Rick Beato's claims of a Y2K Curse. For those in too much of a rush to watch the video, Rick observes that a whole slew of bands that hit it big in the 90s fell off…
February 11, 202115 Comments
The Music Men

The Music Men

The more I learn about popular music, the convinced I become about 1997 being ground zero for pop culture's decline. Like all sectors of the entertainment industry, pop music suffered a marked collapse--not just in sales, but in quality--in the late 90s. What happened ca. 1996-1999 that brought popular music…
February 9, 202124 Comments