The Ringer - Swimming Through Sick Lullabies

First, Rob Harvilla did 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s, except it went on for 120 songs. Now he’s back for another decade with another slightly curiously named show. Welcome to 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s: The 2000s. It’s the same podcast you love. But this time, he’s tackling artists like the Strokes, the White Stripes, Britney Spears (again), Kanye West (probably), and maybe even Nickelback.

Up first is the most lasting rock song of the early 2000s: “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers. Is it the “Don’t Stop Believin’” of its generation? How did it become a stadium anthem? She was touching his what now?! Join Rob and guest Chris Ryan as they attempt to answer these questions and many more. 

The first episode is out now.

What you need to know, as we transition, elegantly, from the 1990s to the 2000s, is that at some point somewhere in there, rock died. Rock ’n’ roll died. I don’t recall that happening, the death of rock ’n’ roll. I certainly recall being informed that rock had died and now it was back, but I missed the death itself. It’s like if you lived in Judea but you were out of town the weekend of the Crucifixion, and you came back on Monday, and you were like, “So, did I miss anything around here?” And your friend was like, “Well, Jesus is back,” and you were like, “What.”     

And see, it’s odd, right, that I don’t recall the exact moment rock died, because I have to say, at the time, as a mouth-breathing ’90s teenager and as a somehow even dopier early-2000s young adult, I was paying very close attention to rock, I thought. An unhealthy amount of attention animated by a disconcerting intensity, you might say. Rock of course flourished in the early ’90s: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Veruca Salt. But when did rock die, precisely? What was the exact moment of rock’s death, roundabouts the turn of the century? —Rob Harvilla

Listen to Episode 1, on “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers