Everybody Loves a Good Decade... This Wasn't One
So here we are, the end of a decade, which is a pretty big deal for all of us, and naturally a time to reflect. Considering I wrote a year-end list summing up 7 of the 10 years of this decade, not to mention (as of this writing) 267 blog entries about the various political, social, cultural, and comical goings-on, I can certainly sum up the decade… with yet another list. Hey, it’s what I do, and everyone else is doing it, so why the hell not?
First things first, if I am to sum up this decade, what the hell do I call it? I never did figure out what to call this decade, despite my many requests throughout the 2000s for someone to help me out with this. Do we call it the 2000s? The 0’s? The Aughts? I know one thing we can’t call this past decade… good. We started the 2000s with the dot-com bubble bursting and a recession to follow, we spent the next several years at each others’ throats politically in a state of decorum that was forever spiraling downward, and now we’re in another (and far worse) recession. Say what you will about George W. Bush and his massive contribution to the events of the past ten years, you just get the feeling that we’ve had better decades. Maybe we’re taking the negative feelings we have right now about things and attaching them to the entire decade, but sometimes decades are defined by what goes on at the end of that decade. The 50s were defined by rock ‘n roll, the 60s by Woodstock, and the 70s by disco... all happening at the end of said decades. More than anything, I think what defines this decade… is crap.
Yes, it was the Decade of Crap. Crappy reality TV, crappy celebrities becoming celebrities for absolutely no reason and then milking it for all it’s worth, focusing on the crappy behavior of people (mostly those crappy celebrities) on the news. Kinda seems fitting that we end this decade by having the AP’s Athlete of the Decade (Tiger Woods) making 24-hour news because of his serial cheating on his wife, some of it involving the use of Ambien for purposes other than what the doctor recommends it for.
Speaking of crap, this is the decade when my chosen industry went to crap. When the decade began, radio was going through consolidation madness and radio stocks were hot on Wall Street. But just like with the dot-coms and the housing market, it was a bubble, and when the bubble burst, things got tough for those of us who chose radio as a career, newbies and veterans alike. Now at the end of the decade, Citadel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and other giants may follow.
And then there was the music… the decade started under a teen-pop hangover, rap-metal morphed into hard rock featuring a bunch of bands that all sound alike, decent music came along for a while with Avril Lavigne and pop-punk, which merged with emo to become really big in the middle of the decade. But by the end of the decade, it was all about Miley. And Taylor Swift. And the Black Eyed Peas. And while they do make good music, better music than the crappy "boy bands" that ushered in the millennium, it's still not music I'd like to be subjected to on a regular basis. And all those soundalike "new metal" bands are STILL mucking up so-called "Alternative" rock radio. Thank god I moved to a city where they have an Alt-Rock station that doesn't play any of that stuff and dares to find new sounds to try out. And now without any further ado, here's some of the things that come to my mind when I think about the 2000s... or whatever the hell this decade was called...
Transformation of the Decade: Justin Timberlake… I hated his guts at the beginning of the decade, but the guy became a real entertainer. He makes good music, he is hilarious and not afraid to make fun of himself (Exhibit A: the Sony commercials with him and Peyton Manning, Exhibit B: his SNL collaborations with Andy Samberg). Almost makes me forgive him for his role in the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” that forever changed radio. And on that note…
Most Important Moment for the Media: Okay yeah, 9-11 was the most important moment of the decade, period. But allowing for that, the most important moment for the media this decade was the aforementioned Janet Jackson incident at the 2004 Super Bowl. The FCC responded most notably by going after Fox for F-bombs dropped during live award show broadcasts, resulting in a U.S. Supreme Court case, but the brunt of the backlash was hurled at radio. Howard Stern was driven off terrestrial radio to satellite, giving satellite a shot in the arm and driving countless listeners away from terrestrial (although Stern’s star has faded considerably without the ability to stir up controversy). The burgeoning FM talk format was strangled by new indecency policies, and a lot of good personalities lost their jobs when the audience went elsewhere. With the personality taken out of radio, many more DJs suffered from a corporate philosophy that focused more on the bottom line and less on building connections between personalities and listeners. No, I’m not focusing much of my doctoral research on this… (note: sarcasm)
Today’s Special – Hypocrisy: If you needed more proof that a decade is an awfully long time, it’s long enough that you’ll eventually hear the same complaints coming from both sides of the political aisle. There is now a movement afoot by angry liberals to get rid of the minority party’s ability to filibuster in the Senate. They say it’s undemocratic, and most notably it dragged out the health care bill process (even though as I said all along, it was inevitable that this would pass). Count Paul Krugman among the chorus of left-wingers calling for the end of minority rights in the Senate. Where were these people earlier this decade when the Republicans were threatening to do the same thing over judicial appointees? Oh that’s right, they were accusing right-wingers of shredding the Constitution. Apparently, it’s only okay to shred the Constitution if YOU’RE in power. Uber-liberal Bob Cesca recognized the hypocrisy in his blog recently, and that may be what has ultimately forced earlier calls for the nuclear option on health care to go by the boards. But it hasn’t stopped other people, mostly of the “we won, get out of our way” persuasion, from calling for this change. All I know is I was taught in college (by a Democrat, mind you) that majority rule with minority rights is one of the reasons why we have the greatest system of government on this earth. But I’m guessing that most of these nuclear option backers probably prefer Hugo Chavez’s way of doing things…
Revisionist History at Work: The AP is reporting that Democrats and conservatives are blasting Republicans for hypocrisy over the health care bill and its effect on the deficit, reminding us that Republicans passed a half-trillion-dollar Medicare expansion in 2003. However, there is absolutely NO mention that the Democrats also had a proposal for Medicare expansion at the time, one that would have cost TWICE AS MUCH! Making it look like Democrats were opposing Part D on purely fiscal grounds is LUDICROUS. But hey, anything to make them look good, right?
Artist of the Decade: Britney Spears. No, I’m serious. Who better to embody the Decade of Crap than a pop singer with questionable talent, whose career has been extended as much as anything by the fact that she’s a cuckoo-bananas celebrity? She helped make TMZ and Perez Hilton household names with her marital adventures, her shaved-head breakdowns, and the occasional forgetting to wear underwear. The music? Who cares about the music? It’s Britney!
Album of the Decade: Green Day, “American Idiot”. Yes, I realize that parts of this album contradict my political views (only parts, Rolling Stone, not the whole album), but if the music is good, I tend to overlook those things. In this case, an album about American alienation in 2004 struck me and many millions as a definitive statement, and a snarling punk-rock one at that. Almost makes you want to thank the guy who stole the master tapes for the album Green Day was going to put out instead... they went back to the drawing board and created a masterpiece. (Honorable Mention: Blink-182’s self-titled 2003 album, which effectively broke down the door to getting emo into the mainstream)
Movie of the Decade: Sorry geeks, this will not begin with “Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter”. The honor goes to “The Departed”. Scorsese finally wins an Oscar for this masterwork, there are awesome performances from a cast full of A-list stars (Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon, Wahlberg, and Sheen, just to name a few). Plus, it made being Irish cool, and for that I am eternally grateful. (Honorable Mention: “The Dark Knight”)
Biggest Advance of the Decade: Web 2.0. When the decade began, I thought it would be interesting to post my thoughts online. A lot of other people did too, and now we have the blogosphere, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. It is fair to say social networking changed the world. Whether or not it was for the better has yet to be determined… now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check my farm on Farmville…
Fashion Trend We’ll Be Most Ashamed Of: Crocs. I have never understood, will never understand how plastic clogs with holes in them became fashionable. Trust me, our kids will look at pictures of us in those things and LAUGH. A LOT.
And Finally: Some are already saying that the next decade will be even worse, with nuclear proliferation, alleged global warming, and more economic ruin in our future. Well, I'm one to believe that a decade is what you make of it, so let's make the best of it, and try to have some fun along the way. We couldn't do that much worse than this decade, could we?
First things first, if I am to sum up this decade, what the hell do I call it? I never did figure out what to call this decade, despite my many requests throughout the 2000s for someone to help me out with this. Do we call it the 2000s? The 0’s? The Aughts? I know one thing we can’t call this past decade… good. We started the 2000s with the dot-com bubble bursting and a recession to follow, we spent the next several years at each others’ throats politically in a state of decorum that was forever spiraling downward, and now we’re in another (and far worse) recession. Say what you will about George W. Bush and his massive contribution to the events of the past ten years, you just get the feeling that we’ve had better decades. Maybe we’re taking the negative feelings we have right now about things and attaching them to the entire decade, but sometimes decades are defined by what goes on at the end of that decade. The 50s were defined by rock ‘n roll, the 60s by Woodstock, and the 70s by disco... all happening at the end of said decades. More than anything, I think what defines this decade… is crap.
Yes, it was the Decade of Crap. Crappy reality TV, crappy celebrities becoming celebrities for absolutely no reason and then milking it for all it’s worth, focusing on the crappy behavior of people (mostly those crappy celebrities) on the news. Kinda seems fitting that we end this decade by having the AP’s Athlete of the Decade (Tiger Woods) making 24-hour news because of his serial cheating on his wife, some of it involving the use of Ambien for purposes other than what the doctor recommends it for.
Speaking of crap, this is the decade when my chosen industry went to crap. When the decade began, radio was going through consolidation madness and radio stocks were hot on Wall Street. But just like with the dot-coms and the housing market, it was a bubble, and when the bubble burst, things got tough for those of us who chose radio as a career, newbies and veterans alike. Now at the end of the decade, Citadel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and other giants may follow.
And then there was the music… the decade started under a teen-pop hangover, rap-metal morphed into hard rock featuring a bunch of bands that all sound alike, decent music came along for a while with Avril Lavigne and pop-punk, which merged with emo to become really big in the middle of the decade. But by the end of the decade, it was all about Miley. And Taylor Swift. And the Black Eyed Peas. And while they do make good music, better music than the crappy "boy bands" that ushered in the millennium, it's still not music I'd like to be subjected to on a regular basis. And all those soundalike "new metal" bands are STILL mucking up so-called "Alternative" rock radio. Thank god I moved to a city where they have an Alt-Rock station that doesn't play any of that stuff and dares to find new sounds to try out. And now without any further ado, here's some of the things that come to my mind when I think about the 2000s... or whatever the hell this decade was called...
Transformation of the Decade: Justin Timberlake… I hated his guts at the beginning of the decade, but the guy became a real entertainer. He makes good music, he is hilarious and not afraid to make fun of himself (Exhibit A: the Sony commercials with him and Peyton Manning, Exhibit B: his SNL collaborations with Andy Samberg). Almost makes me forgive him for his role in the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” that forever changed radio. And on that note…
Most Important Moment for the Media: Okay yeah, 9-11 was the most important moment of the decade, period. But allowing for that, the most important moment for the media this decade was the aforementioned Janet Jackson incident at the 2004 Super Bowl. The FCC responded most notably by going after Fox for F-bombs dropped during live award show broadcasts, resulting in a U.S. Supreme Court case, but the brunt of the backlash was hurled at radio. Howard Stern was driven off terrestrial radio to satellite, giving satellite a shot in the arm and driving countless listeners away from terrestrial (although Stern’s star has faded considerably without the ability to stir up controversy). The burgeoning FM talk format was strangled by new indecency policies, and a lot of good personalities lost their jobs when the audience went elsewhere. With the personality taken out of radio, many more DJs suffered from a corporate philosophy that focused more on the bottom line and less on building connections between personalities and listeners. No, I’m not focusing much of my doctoral research on this… (note: sarcasm)
Today’s Special – Hypocrisy: If you needed more proof that a decade is an awfully long time, it’s long enough that you’ll eventually hear the same complaints coming from both sides of the political aisle. There is now a movement afoot by angry liberals to get rid of the minority party’s ability to filibuster in the Senate. They say it’s undemocratic, and most notably it dragged out the health care bill process (even though as I said all along, it was inevitable that this would pass). Count Paul Krugman among the chorus of left-wingers calling for the end of minority rights in the Senate. Where were these people earlier this decade when the Republicans were threatening to do the same thing over judicial appointees? Oh that’s right, they were accusing right-wingers of shredding the Constitution. Apparently, it’s only okay to shred the Constitution if YOU’RE in power. Uber-liberal Bob Cesca recognized the hypocrisy in his blog recently, and that may be what has ultimately forced earlier calls for the nuclear option on health care to go by the boards. But it hasn’t stopped other people, mostly of the “we won, get out of our way” persuasion, from calling for this change. All I know is I was taught in college (by a Democrat, mind you) that majority rule with minority rights is one of the reasons why we have the greatest system of government on this earth. But I’m guessing that most of these nuclear option backers probably prefer Hugo Chavez’s way of doing things…
Revisionist History at Work: The AP is reporting that Democrats and conservatives are blasting Republicans for hypocrisy over the health care bill and its effect on the deficit, reminding us that Republicans passed a half-trillion-dollar Medicare expansion in 2003. However, there is absolutely NO mention that the Democrats also had a proposal for Medicare expansion at the time, one that would have cost TWICE AS MUCH! Making it look like Democrats were opposing Part D on purely fiscal grounds is LUDICROUS. But hey, anything to make them look good, right?
Artist of the Decade: Britney Spears. No, I’m serious. Who better to embody the Decade of Crap than a pop singer with questionable talent, whose career has been extended as much as anything by the fact that she’s a cuckoo-bananas celebrity? She helped make TMZ and Perez Hilton household names with her marital adventures, her shaved-head breakdowns, and the occasional forgetting to wear underwear. The music? Who cares about the music? It’s Britney!
Album of the Decade: Green Day, “American Idiot”. Yes, I realize that parts of this album contradict my political views (only parts, Rolling Stone, not the whole album), but if the music is good, I tend to overlook those things. In this case, an album about American alienation in 2004 struck me and many millions as a definitive statement, and a snarling punk-rock one at that. Almost makes you want to thank the guy who stole the master tapes for the album Green Day was going to put out instead... they went back to the drawing board and created a masterpiece. (Honorable Mention: Blink-182’s self-titled 2003 album, which effectively broke down the door to getting emo into the mainstream)
Movie of the Decade: Sorry geeks, this will not begin with “Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter”. The honor goes to “The Departed”. Scorsese finally wins an Oscar for this masterwork, there are awesome performances from a cast full of A-list stars (Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon, Wahlberg, and Sheen, just to name a few). Plus, it made being Irish cool, and for that I am eternally grateful. (Honorable Mention: “The Dark Knight”)
Biggest Advance of the Decade: Web 2.0. When the decade began, I thought it would be interesting to post my thoughts online. A lot of other people did too, and now we have the blogosphere, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. It is fair to say social networking changed the world. Whether or not it was for the better has yet to be determined… now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check my farm on Farmville…
Fashion Trend We’ll Be Most Ashamed Of: Crocs. I have never understood, will never understand how plastic clogs with holes in them became fashionable. Trust me, our kids will look at pictures of us in those things and LAUGH. A LOT.
And Finally: Some are already saying that the next decade will be even worse, with nuclear proliferation, alleged global warming, and more economic ruin in our future. Well, I'm one to believe that a decade is what you make of it, so let's make the best of it, and try to have some fun along the way. We couldn't do that much worse than this decade, could we?
posted by Dave | 12:04 PM
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