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- [00:00]
Ian
Welcome back to In Conversation. I'm Ian today. Delighted to be joined by W. David Marks, author of a fantastic new book, Blank Space, a Cultural history of the 21st century. I've been a fan of David since I read Ametora, his iconic history of the Japanese founding of the Ivy Style movement back in the mid 20th century. Just a fantastic study of an endlessly fascinating subject to me at least. Now that can be a little niche, not necessarily entirely relevant to the music world. That is the ostensible focus of Jokerman podcast. But that's where Blank Space comes right in. It's really a look at any number of cultural strains that have run throughout this first quarter of the 21st century. Mostly focusing on music, fashion, technology, a little bit of movies, a little bit of television, but many, many subjects that we're intimately familiar with here on the program. Most exciting to me, David really kind of takes aim at poptimism, which we get into a big long conversation about here in this very interview. When I say poptimism, bit of a misnomer. It's certainly not popular poptimism that you think of in the musical context as opposed to rockism has its roots there, sure, but that cultural critical lens ended up growing far beyond the constraints that it was originally constructed with and almost, almost like mutating into something that is the default mindset that any cultural critic looking at any medium ends up adopting at least here in 2025. Intimately tied in, of course with political economy, cultural capital, soft power, really, you know, money, who makes it, who doesn't, the root of all evil, as they say. Fantastic, theoretically weighty conversation. I think that was long overdue. Very much in the line of. You'll hear some of the names that pop up throughout the interview. Adorno, Jameson Baudrillard, one of my favorites, Mark Fisher, you know, of capitalist realism, Ghosts of My Life, Exiting the Vampire's Castle, fame. Some heady stuff, but at the same time an eminently readable, really just like kind of page turning account of these 25 years that we've all one way or another made it through up until this point at least. So fantastic conversation, fantastic book. Could not put it down. Here to tell you all about it is W. David Marks.
- [02:39]
W. David Marks
People see rock and roll as youth culture. And when youth culture becomes monopolized by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you have any idea? I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture.
- [03:14]
Ian
W. David Marx, thank you so much for joining us on Joker.
- [03:17]
W. David Marks
Thank you so much for Having me and believing this book is relevant to your audience.
- [03:22]
Ian
Oh, please. I mean, listen, I have known of you primarily through the menswear world as an Amatora reader from some time ago. And so I was sort of thrilled to see that you had a book along these lines coming out in the near future. And now here we are talking about it. I honestly can't think of anything more relevant to a lot of what we talk about here. So you've done us all a great service here. The book is of course, Blank Space, A cultural History of the 21st Century, available now. Well, let's, you know, a lot to talk about here, certainly a lot in our general focus in, in terms of the music world. But could you start us off just a very brief elevator pitch kind of thesis of what's going on here?
- [04:05]
W. David Marks
Sure. So there had not been a clear general cultural history of any of the decades in the 21st century. And in thinking about that, I. It seemed like the half the reason was everything seems like this big blur. And so at the 25 year mark, I thought it was useful to at least stop and say, okay, what, what has happened in the last 25 years? And even if it feels like a blur on a day by day basis or a month by month basis, there must have been some big value shifts that, that changed. And, and so I was reading Chuck Costerman's the 90s and really thinking about the 90s recently and that idea of selling out and the degree to which and where I started the book with Pearl jam, deciding in 1992 that they were getting too popular too quickly and, and making the hard decision of not making any more videos for mtv. I thought that was a truly bizarre decision viewed from the 21st century. So I thought at least we could do this 25 year history of how values have shifted and how culture has shifted. In the process of trying to define how you would explain these 25 years, I came to this concept of blank space, which is that we have cultural activity. There's in some ways more culture being created today than ever before in the history of the world. We have more options, distribution is better. Yet there's something missing. And culture is working incredibly well as entertainment and distraction, as a profit center and as a political tool. But that that engine of creative activity and creative experimentation and this sense of trying to do something more with the mediums like film and music seems to have just gone away as a cultural value. And so it's looking at what do you have with culture when everybody's running around Making it, but there's not this sense that we're making it because we're trying to make it better than before or do something different or really push the art forward.
- [06:18]
Ian
Absolutely. And I think a lot of the argument that you end up kind of formulating here is through the lens of. Or not through the lens of, but through a critical discussion of poptimism, a term that I think sort of like in rock music world has a very specific sort of meaning. And it's kind of a. It can be simplified to the. This basic binary between white guys with guitars versus pop stars and stuff. But in your book, and what I honestly kind of love about it is you use that term, but there's a lot more sort of theoretical heft and weight to it. At least I kind of interpreted that there's much more kind of theory and political economy, I think, backing that up as opposed to just this false dichotomy between whatever, the Strokes and Taylor Swift or something. Can you kind of just like, what is your. When you use the term optimism in the book, what does that. What does that mean to you?
- [07:14]
W. David Marks
Yeah, so the term optimism begins. I mean, it really begins in the 80s. And I think Simon Reynolds, the music critic, was one of the first people to use it, although he. He claims that he. He didn't even coin it, but it was meant for this very specific descriptor of indie UK bands who were toying with manufactured pop aesthetics. And then later in the early 20th, 21st century, you had this debate in music forums between rockists who were, you know, very into, let's say the Strokes or Radiohead, and then either poppists or poptimists as it became, who were saying that that was a exclusionary, very narrow way to look at music. And so poptimism became this term that was. Quite. Became kind of pejorative. And people who are actual poptimists don't like being called poptimists. And it's. I still get these people on Blue sky yelling at me all the time. Every time I mention it, I. I feel like I can, as much as these poptimist critics don't like me, I feel like I can give the most. The best explanation of what I think the justification was of what they were doing. That. That in total good faith, which is that poptimist had a incredibly good point, that the tools of music criticism were being used only to think about white male rock music.
- [08:45]
Ian
Yes.
- [08:45]
W. David Marks
And that there was really interesting things happening in hip hop, R and B. You think about Timbaland and the Neptunes, especially at that point. But even, you know, a lot of the production on Britney Spears songs was interesting. And so the idea that you were limiting yourself, saying we should only focus on. On these white rock bands is the only form of artistic progress is wrong and we should expand. And so there's. There's, I guess what you would call maybe something like soft poptimism, which is to say all we're saying is that pop music should be taken as seriously as rock music. When it comes to valuing music. I think that is an impeachable position and I have no problems with it. Poptimism then took. Went broader than these critics. And I think the critics are, Are, Are. Are a little bit edgy about this because they don't want to blame for it. But the market took on a poptimist valuation of pop culture, which went beyond that, which is to say that there's something about pop. Things that are made to be pop, that are more authentic than things that are outside of the market. And that is a big reversal of values from the 20th century, which tended to see pop as a delegitimate form of control of the masses. I mean, if you go to kind of someone like. Or Dorno Adorno that it's like, you know, these masses are being manipulated by pop culture, or it's just that this is for a bunch of rubes and it's obviously not important and the important things are happening on. On the edges of the market instead. To see that pop culture, that a Lady Gaga or Katy Perry is where cultural activity is actually happening. And that's. The major leagues are what matters and the minor leagues don't really matter. And that. That is a big reversal from the 20th. So I think that sentiment you would describe as poptimist, you can just. You can disconnect it from those particular critics. But there's no question that those ethics and those values are now what drives, I think, most of the criticism and most of the way people think about pop culture.
- [10:45]
Ian
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you almost get the sense that like the. The term poptimism or the concept behind it, like, sort of like it got away from the poptimists a little bit, you know, or the people who like, introduced, you know, the theory towards the beginning of the 21st century and, and now, you know, it's funny you mentioned getting yelled about it on Bluesky. It's like, you know, it's almost like. Cause I do think that there is like a. The way that you use the term at least, like There is a really like, strong kind of point you can make that again is like, is logical and backed up by theory and ethics really that like, this is not the right way to look at things, even if the initial point, you know, to sort of give a lot of the music outside of just white guys with guitars some sort of critical legitimacy, like that obviously was long overdue and was a strong step in the right direction in terms of music criticism. But at this point it's gone. It's kind of like. It's like the virus got out of the laboratory and now it's just like mutated beyond all recognition.
- [11:41]
W. David Marks
Right. And so, you know, my thing also, and I get accused also of like not believing that pop culture is legitimate at all or something, which is ridiculous. I mean, and so for me, what is interesting about let's say the 60s is that you have the Beatles be a pop band with mass appeal in, in, you know, really derided by high culture people, but that they're slowly kind of bringing all these artistic influences into the music. And by the. The end of their entire career, they have introduced the world to Indian music, to music concrete, to like all these different kind of genres that otherwise they, they wouldn't have have done. And so the pop, the, let's say the soft poptimus early thing would say you need to take the Beatles seriously as cultural innovators. At which point you would say, well, of course the, the hard poptimism or kind of where poptism went is something like, how dare the Beatles try to be pretentious by putting these artistic ideas into their work. Because good pop music is simple, it's understandable, it's catchy. It doesn't try to be anything more than pop music. And I think that's, that's kind of the mutation is that there's. And sometimes maybe I'll call it like a pro pop ideology rather than poptimism, but something. When Addison Rae's album came out this year, there was a sense that it is good because she's not trying very hard to be artistic, that the lyrics are kind of earnestly bad and that's what's cool about it, rather than, you know, having kind of a higher bar for her or, you know, this Taylor Swift album, you know. Recently on the Popcast, the New York Times podcast about pop music, Joe Coscarelli made a quite controversial point. That the song actually Romantic, which is just kind of like a Pixies ripoff by Taylor Swift, is better than every single thing on Brat by Charlie xcx.
- [13:36]
Ian
Oh, boy, that one slipped by me. That's quite acclaim.
- [13:40]
W. David Marks
Yeah. And so he was asked to explain this, and he said that what he wants out of pop and pop artists is a straight, is a fastball, no curves.
- [13:49]
Ian
Interesting.
- [13:49]
W. David Marks
And that, you know, Charlie is. Is trying to be too artistic, and it just doesn't work for him. And I was in the bodega in New York a couple weeks ago, and Apple by Charli XCX came on, which is like, this really straightforward pop song is like, this is too much. This is too much of a curveball for you. And so that I think that there's something else going on, which is that. And I understand why the poptimists don't want to be associated with this, but there's also this sense that music or pop culture is better when it is trying to be bigger and. And for more people and more democratic and more immediate. And I think a lot of people, and I'm guessing a lot of people who listen to this podcast have had experiences that have changed their life where they encounter something they do not understand. And it took some time to decode, to learn what is pretentiously in the literary theory called, like, the idiolect of the artist. Like, they have a certain way of doing things that you have to learn. And then after three or four listens to an album, you're suddenly like, this is incredible. And it's changed my life, and I will forever be able to appreciate more things because the artist has taught me how to appreciate more things. And so there is a real, I think, almost ideological battle about is art supposed to be pushing you as a listener, or is it supposed to meet you where you are? And obviously, from a business point of view, the artists who are able to deliver to their fans exactly the thing they already want has been very lucrative. And it's been interesting to see, let's say, in Taylor Swift's case books coming out, saying that she is a poetic genius, and part of our genius is that she can connect with fans where they are. And that's a very different kind of genius than the genius we used to talk about, which is someone who would take their fan, take the audience somewhere that they didn't know they were going.
- [15:29]
Ian
Right? Yeah, I kind of like the concept of meeting you where you are versus something that you need to sort of struggle with and work at over time. That's sort of the whole concept behind a lot of, you know, behind the reason that we even started this podcast, like, half a decade ago at this point is because there was so much music from, you know, initially with Bob Dylan, then with Lou Reed and John Cale, now to the Beach Boys and, you know, certainly on into the future with other artists where, like, it sort of baffles, you know, and it is like. It is a struggle. And it, like, it kind of confounds you. And. And the fact that it comes from these sort of generational defining artists. Artists that at one point would have been. I guess some of them would have been considered more pop than others. The Beach Boys obviously were pop artists at the beginning. I don't know that Lou or the Velvet Underground would have ever qualified quite so strictly. But, you know, it's like the fact that it comes from those type of artists makes you want to sort of struggle with it. So, like, when you mentioned, like, the Taylor Swift, Charlie XCX dichotomy there, like, if I don't understand Brat being sort of like a curveball on pop in the first place, that's a whole other conversation. But were I to believe that and then I heard Brat for the first time, like, I would want to sit down and be like, well, let me figure this out, you know, Let me see where this person is coming from. Let me see what's behind this music. Instead of just being like, oh, ipso facto, this is less than something that I completely understand on its surface from the jump, right.
- [16:58]
W. David Marks
And I would look, I would say an interesting twist on this is Geese at the moment. Because great band, great bands. And I. If you listen to 3D country, which I had not heard when it came out, I went back and listened to you hear the elements of Rolling Stones and you know what the references are. But you also, if you're paying close enough attention, you can see where they're twisting it, where they're playing with it, where they're laying it like they're taking a Zeppelin idea and then doing something different with it and combining it in different ways. And it is. It is actually deeper than just like the cosplay of, like, we're just doing Zeppelin like it. Because it isn't Zeppelin. There's something else going on. And so the point is, you have to give it time. So if you're just like, superficially, this is this thing and that's all it is, then obviously you're not going to get depth to it. But you have to just have that faith that an artist is providing the depth for you to discover and that. And that there is something. But there's just so many people I'll recommend. Let's say geese to them or something, and they'll just be like, yeah, I listen, I could only get through half the album. It's like, well, you didn't even listen to it in a sense, like, Like, I, I, you know, my general rules. Did not have an opinion on anything until I've heard it three times. Because by the third listen, I'm starting to understand and remember the melodies and. And. But before that point, you're just getting the superficial cursory sense of like, this is what. This is now. What.
- [18:18]
Ian
You get to lay the land.
- [18:20]
W. David Marks
Yeah. And what. What worries me about, like, Taylor Swift. I went. Had to go back and listen to a lot of it for the book. And it. I thought I would dislike it more. I thought it would actually be like, this was a. Like a painful experience. And it wasn't. It's, like, very pleasant. It is very easy to listen to.
- [18:39]
Ian
Absolutely.
- [18:39]
W. David Marks
And it's because it is manufactured to be instantly catchy. It's like you're in the middle of the chorus and you already remember the chorus. And some of the technique of that is knowing these kind of golden chord progressions that got big in the 90s and they're stuck in the back of everyone's head. They're just like. The ambient human knowledge that exists right now is like these. It's like the better. Better than Ezra good progression. Right? And so they're taking that chord progression and just churning out song after song after song with that chord progression. And I. I looked it up. It was like, she must have used this, you know, dozens of times. And so the main. That main chord progression she had, at least at the time of the article was written, which is a couple years ago, she had used it on 21 different songs.
- [19:24]
Ian
Jesus.
- [19:24]
W. David Marks
Right. It's not this. Like, she had it twice. Like, I think for most artists, like, using it twice would be embarrassing 21 times. For these other two classic chord progressions, she'd use those, like, 10 or 15 times. So that music is made to be immediately understandable. And I just heard the Wet Leg album yesterday, too, and I was like, yes, this is great, but it's great because I lived in 1995 and I remember all of this, and so it's immediately understandable. And so I think that is kind of the challenge. And obviously the information economy is pushing us to not give attention to things and not slow down, to not listen to things three times. And so if you're an artist who makes things instantly understandable, that is really rewarding in terms of finance. And find your finances in terms of audience building, but in, you know, in terms of long term historical meaning and these other kind of things we used to care about, obviously it's not the way things should go. And so, you know, this. I feel like this century has been the Mike Love century, and it was a Brian Wilson century.
- [20:33]
Ian
Right now you're speaking my language.
- [20:35]
W. David Marks
And. And so the question is, like, when a Brian Wilson or David lynch passed away, they are lionized. Like, we stop and we say, these are people that matter that really made a big difference. And, you know, when Michael passes away, it's just not going to be. And so that's. That is the thing is the human beings, even if at the moment they're like, this person is a great entrepreneur and the Taylor Swift is an incredible economic force, will they, you know, if they're not making those kind of artistic innovations, will they be lionized the same way?
- [21:13]
Ian
Right. Well, it strikes me a little bit also, you know, you can think about this along the axis of like, short term thinking versus long term thinking, where like, if, you know, in, in the short term, in the immediate, you might see, you know, higher, quicker, greater returns from something, you know, really surface level, satisfying, catchy on first listen type of thing. But, like, over time, in the long run, think of the extraordinary returns that we've gotten from the Beatles catalog, the Beach Boys catalog. So on these artists that were, like, given the time and frankly, the industry support at the beginning of their careers to develop and to find their voice and to establish themselves as pop stars and then kind of become great artists on top of that fact. The bodies of work that they've created are so much greater and honestly, so much more financially rewarding for, for the artists and for any other labels or companies that have rights to it than they would have been if they were just pressured to just keep cranking out the same thing over and over again.
- [22:14]
W. David Marks
Yeah, the best book about the Beatles is Revolution in the Head. If you haven't read that, I really recommend it because it goes song by song. It has an incredible opening essay and then it goes song by song trying to talk about what the specific musical innovation was. And he's pretty brutal when he doesn't think they've done a good job. So it's not just like a fan, fanboy book. But his point about the Beatles was that from the very beginning they kept twisting, doing one little twist in every song and they kept being rewarded for it. So they said, okay, if we twisted that last one, we could add this, okay, Next song we can add feedback. Okay, now, this time we can do some Dylan. Now we can do this. So every time they were rewarded by it, it just made them want to be more experimental. But I'm watching Anthology again because it just. It's on tv.
- [23:05]
Ian
Yeah, I'm watching it too now.
- [23:06]
W. David Marks
And, you know, I've seen it probably five or six times and it's been a while, but I'm trying to watch it from this perspective that I didn't think about until I started writing cultural histories, which is that it. The story it tells about the Beatles and the way that we know the Beatles is like. It's like the Bible in the sense. Like, there's this really important band called the Beatles, and then here's their story. But. And it's. It's all predetermined that, of course, they become the biggest band in the world.
- [23:31]
Ian
Sure.
- [23:31]
W. David Marks
And if you watch it oppositely, which is like this random miracle happens. It's like, you know, when. When lightning struck, a pool of amino acids and life was created or something. Like, somehow these, like, random people in Liverpool happened to have this incredible journey. If you watch it from that perspective, I think what is so fascinating is the degree to which, yes, George Martin was a producer, cleaned them up and gave them a good sound. But over and over they would go in the studio and especially the beginning, and George Martin would be like, congratulations, we're giving you this record contract. I've just spent two weeks looking for a hit for you, and I've got this song, how you do it, or I think that's what it's called. And they were like, nope. Like, we'll record it, but we're not doing this. Like, we're gonna do my own song. And it's like, well, what's your song? It's like, oh, please, please me. And then George Martin's like, you know what? Pretty good. Like, I think you're gonna do well with this. But the fact from the very beginning that they were given this chance and that they didn't just let the producer roll over them, they said, no, we're doing it our way. And then they did Please me. And then they would go in with. With crazy ideas that. And George Martin's job was to clean them up and to. To do. The crazy idea in the whole story of the Beatles, in some ways, is them having something they don't know to technically do, but they know that would be cool. And then he had to figure it out. But that's very different than Max Martin or The way that the system works now, where it's like you take an artist and it's all shaped for the artist because the data is there about knowing you need X, Y and Z. And you have to have this to happen. And people do feel like they don't have the confidence to just say no and to do it their way because it's like this is their one chance.
- [25:14]
Ian
Right? Yeah. And that I think, you know, aligns perfectly with. I think one of the recommendations you make like in the conclusion of the book, which is like, don't. I think the, you know, the thing you bold, you know, the headline text is like, don't give the people what they want. You know, like. And this aligns with like, you know, turn into like technology conversation too much. Although there is a lot of discussion about tech in this, which I think is fantastic and trenchant as well. But like, that was Steve Jobs Maxim also. He knew what, you know, what was going to drive the industry forward and what needed to happen as opposed to like skating to where the puck is and just making, you know, the same sort of technology as everyone else. The vision for an ipod or an iPhone, like that's what actually makes fundamental transformational contributions.
- [25:59]
W. David Marks
Yeah, I mean, look, Steve Jobs is another really great example of this principle. But for a lot of Steve Jobs career, I mean, obviously he made a lot of money on Apple in the 80s, but he did not become Bill Gates level successful.
- [26:11]
Ian
Right.
- [26:12]
W. David Marks
And it wasn't until later when he passed away that Apple became the most valuable company in the world. And so you look at that whole story, you say like, well, of course, Steve Jobs entrepreneurial genius, but for so much of his time, and he really cared about things that limited the, the business scope of what he was doing. And, and, and there's a great interview in which Steve Jobs says, I have, you know, no, no problems with Microsoft, except they have no taste. They're just, they're not, they're not making products that are moving the culture forward. Where the whole point of Apple is he was willing to, to do things that were not for everybody, that were ahead of the market, that were tasteful and felt progressive and he would have a smaller audience and smaller business, but he would feel good about it. And at some point every, you know, they started really connecting that with what people needed, starting with the ipod and then the iPhone. And then of course they create basically the modern tech infrastructure. But you know, Microsoft made way more money making cruddy products. And, and that's, that's just the way it Works, but it's. If you were a young person coming up, I think you would not have experienced the, the Steve Jobs in the wilderness or in the 90s. You know, being an Apple Mac user, you were kind of just sidelined is this, you know, you were in this weird cult of people who cared about, about art and taste and it all pays off. But, and so as Steve Jobs dies, he's like one of the iconic figures of, of his era. But I think it's again because you had to make some sort of choice of going beyond your audience to have some sort of belief that the thing you're doing could make a better world and that there could be more. And not just the cynical sense of like, well, people are dumb and they, I have to give them the dumb thing that they want.
- [28:04]
Ian
Right. And that I think is a large part of the reason. Like Apple, certainly like Apple in the 90s, a very different, you know, company than it is today. But like, you know, back then, certainly when it was on the, you know, kind of verge of bankruptcy, like there was a, there's a cache, like a cultural cachet to Apple, you know, like a small select group of people and they were consciously like the technology for people in the humanities, artists and stuff like that, that like, you know, the fact that they were so willing to carve out this small niche and not pursue the absolute maximum, you know, value for shareholders, the way that Microsoft was like, that's what made them so culturally powerful and significant. And obviously the way the company is run today, it's unrecognizable. But I think that's, and that's a point you make in the book in several other contexts as well. It's just like you need to be willing to not always prioritize and pursue maximum short term economic value above all else, because that's gonna fuck your shit up.
- [29:05]
W. David Marks
Yeah. And so the, the missing piece though also. And this gets back to critics and I, you know, one of the, I've seen some criticism of the book saying there's a lot of problems with culture at the moment, with the cultural ecosystem and why are you picking on critics? Because critics are not having a great time. It's not like critics are all sitting in their golden palaces with all the money they're making for music criticism and that, you know, and I'm outside throwing pebbles at their windows. I, I understand what the pressures are. The thing I'm trying to solve for is that on your, as an artist, on your pathway to long term epoch making cultural innovation, you're going to have some years in the wilderness. You're going to have some years where you don't get supported by the market, where you have small audiences, you're not making money, and so you need something to sustain you through that. And so it was very clear in the past that there were cultured people and. And critics who made you feel as if you're doing the right thing, even if it wasn't working in a mass level. And critics in particular were really important for that to say, look, you guys don't like this and you don't understand it, but you. This is really important and you should listen to it even if no one does. And so that. That could. That could feel really good and it could sustain you. One, if you have to, if you have a poptimist model for criticism that, let's say, even says, look, we're going to do two, I'm gonna do 10 reviews. And six of them have to be Addison Rae and Taylor Swift and Charlie, because that's where the market is. And then four of them are going to be the things I like. That's already, you know, a 50% reduction in the kind of benefits you can give to innovative artists that. If it used to be, let's call it the, like, horrible old snob model where it's like, we're only going to focus on innovative artists. And I don't care what the. I don't. I don't need to tell somebody that a New Kids on the Block song is catchy because they know that. So I'm just going to leave that to the market and we're going to talk about My Bloody Valentine instead. So if you're already. The critics are already diluting the status that they give to these innovative artists, and then you have the. The, like. The creative class is a kind of cringe term, but just like people who are consumers of more sophisticated and stimulating things.
- [31:16]
Ian
Sure.
- [31:17]
W. David Marks
Also defining themselves of. I'm so open to culture that I also only listen to Addison Rae and Taylor Swift because that's how democratic I am, then they are also not providing these innovative artists with a fan base. And then as they get used to how easy it is to, like, a banger for Addison Rae, then if, like, Dijon comes out with an album that's, like, a little more difficult and not immediate, they may actually have trouble getting into it. So, like, well, I'm not. I can't go back to listening to this kind of more difficult music that in some ways maybe I was forced for elitist reasons. To listen to and I ended up liking. But it was always like a painful process. I'm tired, like, I'm working 18 hours a day. I'm just. I just want a banger when I'm going home in my car. So I understand where that's coming from. But if, if these two groups, and the reason I want to give these two groups a hard time is because I know these people and it's like I could change. I could actually change this. I can't make Zuckerberg do anything. I can't make.
- [32:21]
Ian
Can't get him to stop wearing the chains.
- [32:23]
W. David Marks
Yeah, I mean, I mean, maybe that's the one thing I can do, but maybe I can make Mike Amiri feel weird about having a T shirt line with Zuckerberg, but I can't change the structure of the market. But I can remind people in these two groups that you used to have this function. Do you really want to abandon this function for whatever it is you're getting out of it? And that mean that. I think it's so far, I would say it's not really worked in the sense of people just see it as an attack. But I, I really do think this, this is another missing piece is you can have innovative artists out there and if there's no one supporting them and the market's not supporting them, like, why would they continue?
- [33:05]
Ian
Makes sense.
- [33:05]
W. David Marks
Yeah.
- [33:06]
Ian
And I think you can chart sort of a lot of that. I mean, you can chart that attitude, the development of that attitude over time through any number of channels. But one, I think that occurs to me, you know, very naturally, and one that you mentioned in several times is Pitchfork, you know, which begins obviously as the, you know, whatever, maybe the raucous publication of all raucous publications, you know, when Ryan Driver's running out of his basement. And then over time, certainly like post Conde acquisition turns into, I think a more. Much more sort of poptimus, you know, mindset type publication. I think you reference the time when they like went back and reviewed old Taylor Swift albums to like make up for the sins of previous Pitchforks. And now it almost feels like there's a new one. Obviously a lot of the website was just sort of like hacked apart when it was folded into GQ last year, but certainly with the last couple year end lists that they put out publicizing the Cindy Lee album last year and now this new one. I don't know if you saw Los Thuthanaka. I think I'm pronouncing it. These records that have no presence on Streaming, no distribution anywhere. Certainly no big money behind them. But, you know, trying to lift those up and contextualize them in the midst of this, you know, album list that does still have a lot of strong, you know, it's got whatever bad Bunny in it, it's got Addison Rae, and it's got a lot of the poptimist flavor still to it. I wonder if we're like moving towards maybe a synthesis of those two approaches. I don't know.
- [34:36]
W. David Marks
Yeah, I think a synthesis is totally possible, which is the reason, again, it's like I'm accused of, you only want high culture. It's like, no, I don't think we can even get there. I just want a little bit of the interesting things move back to the middle. And that seems like a good, A good factor in the thing you just described. Seems like a good outcome. Look, my. My sins with Pitchfork and the reason that it's easy to also. It's easy to become cynical that you just. That obviously critics don't matter and this is all just, you know, inter creative class bickering. But, you know, I was in Tokyo in 2003 and I was. I was kind of making. Making music. And I knew I did this gig with this other band and the back guitarist for that band's a guy named Shugo Tokamaru. And he was like, yeah, making kind of Beach Boysy type music. And I was like, oh yeah. Like, I was like very into the Smile bootleg at that point. So we were talking about Beach Boys. And so he gave me his demo and I gave and I listened to it. I was like, this is pretty good. And I sent it to my Trevor in New York and he put out the record. And then I gave the record to my friend Nick Sylvester, who was a writer at. At Pitchfork, and he wrote a review of it on Pitchfork. And that review was very good. And suddenly Shugo got very, very big within that kind of scene in the US And I met like random people who had never met before and they had Shugo on his. On their ipods. I was like, this is. This is super cool that, you know, people downloaded this. And then, you know, Suga got very big in Japan because of that buzz from New York. And then he's become like, you know, huge generational defining artist in Japan. And so, you know, being a small part of that process. And it wasn't. It's not to. I was literally the person who just like gave CDs to people. Like, I wasn't doing that much heavy lifting. But you Saw the impact of what Pitchfork could do. And so there was all these bands that. With the Pitchfork effect, I mean, I think Arcade Fire is probably one of the clearest ones.
- [36:39]
Ian
They want to take that one back, given the ensuing career. Pat, for our kid.
- [36:44]
W. David Marks
But yes, exactly. We can talk about whether those were the right bands or not. But it's very clear that Pitchfork. There was a Pitchfork effect. That was a real thing. And so the idea that critics, if you can. If you can bring together the audience who's hungry for recommendations and make those recommendations, there is still an effect to that. And, you know, just. I think I know the Dijon album. I think because I followed hearing things on Blue sky or something, and there's this new record. I was like, great, I will listen to that. And Geese too. It's just, you know, people. I think Stephen Haydn was like, this album is great. It's like, great. I will listen to this. So where critics make recommendations and critics that I really believe in, and you give it a chance that that process still happens. And so where music criticism only becomes reporting on the sports scores because, like, oh, these are the top, most important big releases of the year. So we're just going to order and rank those versus here's a bunch of things that you've never heard of. And that is such an important role for critics that I think we should be very careful. Undervaluing. Because you see its effects all the time.
- [37:57]
Ian
Absolutely, yeah. And you almost, like, think that some critics are willfully abandoning that role or have willfully abandoned that role, which almost seems, I don't know, to me, antithetical to the concept of criticism in the first place. You know, I guess far be it for me to be throwing stones from the outside myself, but like that, Like, I guess, why are you. Why are you in the game if you're just there to say that, you know, the latest Taylor Swift record is the best record of the years. Like, we got plenty of other people that are saying that.
- [38:27]
W. David Marks
Right. I mean, what I would argue is. Let me argue their. Their position. I think this is unconscious. I don't know if I don't think they would say it this way. But let me give you the good faith argument, which is that if people really love Taylor Swift and it's part of their identity, to recognize that their tastes are legitimate is really important. It makes those people feel good. And so to be a critic that goes out and says, look, I know there's all these people who love all this music, I want to explain to you why you're right that you should love this music because there is something more than just. It's just. It's not just catchy and manipulative. It has these values to it that can feel really positive because you're doing the service to people, which is you're telling them that they're right. Like, and people really want to hear that. But obviously there's just downsides in that. It. It mucks up all the other parts of criticism that you can't kind of do that. And. And also say, okay, we have a really low bar for Addison Rae, because of course, that's not what we want out of Addison Rae. But then we're going to flip over and treat Geese much differently. I mean, I think that is actually what's happening, which is the Geese are held to this enormously higher level than Addison Rae, is that Addison and Rae can do a song that sounds exactly like a slowed down Charlie song. And everyone's like, that's fun. And then if Geese has any reference to any previous music, it's like, oh, they're just doing cosplay.
- [39:45]
Ian
Right.
- [39:46]
W. David Marks
So I think there is, like, something hypocritical about what's going on, but I understand some of the impulse of why critics today would feel good about doing, like, waxing poetically for thousands of words about how great Taylor Swift is.
- [40:02]
Ian
Sure. Well, you know, I guess to each their own. Hopefully you don't find me doing that anytime soon. Can we talk a little bit about Kanye?
- [40:11]
W. David Marks
Yes.
- [40:12]
Ian
Because he sort of, you know, the structure of the book. You know, I think it's four main chapter, not chapters, but four main sections, subdivided in about four or five chapters each, where you go through. I know the first one's about 2000 to 2000 to, like, Obama, Then you got early Obama years, then you got Trump years, then you got Biden years. And it kind of ends with the return to Return of the King, so to speak. But if there's one individual who emerges as sort of a protagonist, or at least the most interesting character to come back to and reflect on all the many different threads you're commenting on here, it is Kanye, without a doubt. I guess. I don't know. Can you just like, what's his deal?
- [40:54]
W. David Marks
Yeah, I mean, Kanye is the story of the 21st century. And, you know, obviously there should be a full book only about Kanye, which I believe a certain music critic is somewhat working on. And I don't. I don't know what the state of it is, but he was a massive force for progress in culture for a very long time. And I. And this is what's difficult is that when someone goes beyond the bounds of acceptable social norms, which he has. And I. I refuse to listen to his music now.
- [41:28]
Ian
Sure.
- [41:28]
W. David Marks
And I. And I very, very do not like this idea that he's kind of being given a pass for mental health to make Nazi statements or any kind of the foot scene with Nazi things I think are irredeemable. So that's. That's like where I'm. That's where I'm starting from. I'm starting from that. I think he. He has made himself irredeemable as a. As a figure that I do not. Do not want to support. Now, if you look at the historical timeline, though, you can't take him out of that timeline because he is a bridge. You know, he starts the century with trying to do something which is to bring together pop rap and backpack rap. And he does that and in that process brings in gospel and R and B and all these different references. He creates this real hybrid sound that I think opened the door for a lot of more experimentation on the hip hop side. I mean, or at least in the middle of the market, he brings in. He's a big supporter of a bathing ape and Japanese streetwear. And then that goes to him being very into band of outsiders and all those brands. APC and then moving to luxury fashion. So this. The hybridization. Obviously rappers had liked the luxury brands, but you're really getting close to them and doing collaborations and going to shows. Like all that really starts with him.
- [42:51]
Ian
Sure.
- [42:52]
W. David Marks
I would say my. My Dark Twisted Fantasies. What the specific name of it. But that record, you know, was held up as the number one record of the 21st century for a long time for just sheer audacity and audacity. And there's, you know, obviously, like, Runaways is an incredible song. I started to say that. So he did that then. So there's like the part that's like the good part. Then there's the part where he's just breaking all these boundaries in sense of him and Kim. You know, Kim, the Kardashians were in reality even general outside still of the kind of elite cultural space. And there's a debate about how much he deserves credit and how much Kim deserves credit for breaking those barriers. But it's very clear that he helped her find a new personal style that was much more elevated and that there was a campaign to kind of win Anna Ventur over about Kim Kardashian, that he was a big part of and it succeeded. And once they were on the COVID of Vogue, and I think that's like the most telling kind of mini chapter of this book about Kimye is that there was just no more barriers between high, high fashion designer fashion, the indie subculture, or indie consumer culture, and reality tv. They had all merged. And so as you look at that, it's like, okay, that, that is the story of this hybridization of cultures in the 21st century. And then the fact that he goes hardcore right wing in a somewhat trolly, transgressive way at first and becomes like a Trump guy was also the story of the 21st century, which is that transgression had to go right wing because they're just too many people saw liberal ideas as being hegemonic. And so it's like, well, the obvious way to fight against it is to be pro Trump. And then for the, that pro Trump sentiment to keep turning into this groiper flirting with Nazi side to the, you know, he, he, he did this like dinner with Nick Fuentes, right? At Trump, Amer a lago, et cetera. He was doing that kind of stuff. He's partnering with Neil Yiannopoulos. And then the fact that this year, which is where the book ends in 2025, he makes a self made TV commercial for the super bowl on his iPhone of him sitting in a dentist chair, in which he recommends people go to a website in which they had, they had the website set up with other things, and then once it aired, they changed the website to only have one product, which was a white shirt with a black swastika. And then to do a song called Heil Hitler. Like, actually when I turned in, it was just a T shirt. And then I had to go back and be like. And he did a song called Heil Hitler. It's like, how much more anti Semitic things can we add from Kanye here? So, I mean, that is the arc of, of this, of American culture, which is that somebody who started from this earnest real curiosity about the world and wanting to, to, you know, push artistic ideas in all these different fields just ends up making a Schwarzenegger T shirt. Jesus.
- [46:02]
Ian
Yeah. The fall really, you know, when you, when you chart it, because, you know, living through this, you know, I've been listening to Kanye since probably like graduation back in 2007. And, you know, living through it, you kind of, you know, one day comes after the other. You know, you see where he was at yesterday, and then you see where he's at today, and then you're gonna see where he's at tomorrow. And so the, the, the devolution is sort of steady and you can kind of like draw lines, you know, on a short term basis of where he was, where he is, where he's going. But like, when you really chart the entire arc across this entire book, like the, the, the fall is. Is pretty staggering, I gotta be honest.
- [46:39]
W. David Marks
But. And it's not just, you know, a fall because of his personal foibles, like, you know, he did something bad. It's that you can see the ideological mechanism in his head of why he's making these choices. And I think that that to me is more reflective of the culture in general. He is not the only one sure who thinks that he to be punk rock is to make the swastika T shirt.
- [47:05]
Ian
You know, there isn't even a way to like criticize. It's just like so stupid on its face. You know, it's. It res like discussion or criticism or intellectualization. It's just like you have a gut reaction of just, you know, fury at the plain idiocy. The whole thing. I do at least.
- [47:23]
W. David Marks
I mean, the one thing I'd also added that just blows me away though is okay, this is his activity for the year. The two famous things that he did and he, I mean, obviously in the previous years there were also terrible examples of this. And yet, like, I'll just get a pop up from Google, like on the news site. It was like some hip hop site will be like rumors of, you know, Kanye West's gonna drop bully, you know, in, in the next month or something. I mean, people are still talking about his music releases as it's just Bad Bunny or something. It's like he's just one, one artist among many. And so there's a sense that he's Persona non grata, but he really isn't. I mean, he really is start still part of the ecosystem. And the degree to which Parade magazine, which is like the really like super normie, like the normiest like thing that comes, I guess it came on Sundays in your like Sunday edition back in the 90s. Now it's just like a website. But pre magazine every day for a while had an article that's like, you won't believe what Kanye West's wife's wearing, you know, right now, like these near nude outfits or something. And so the degree to which it's like, if you're getting that much attention, you're not Persona non grata. Persona non grotto. It's like literally, I don't know what kind he's up to because no one talks about him anymore, but we all know what he's up to because everybody talks about him. Yeah.
- [48:36]
Ian
You know, he makes money for. For all these. He makes money for himself, makes money for everyone else. All the remora fish involved. Nothing. I mean, in a book that, like, really, you know, how old am I? I'm 33. I was born in 1992, so I've grown up with a lot of this stuff. And, you know, like, I kind of remembered, you know, a lot of the things that you touch on as you chart the history. But, like, nothing. Nothing feels so sort of distant and detached from where we're at culturally. As the section where you're talking about, I think initially Paris Hilton and then Kim Kardashian and just the sort of the utter, like, the distaste and the contempt that the culture had for these reality star people, just on a very immediate level, that these people were unserious and not worth taking seriously, not worth kind of thinking about, you know, compared to where, you know, what. What has happened, where it is today. I was just, like, kind of flabbergasted to remember, like, oh, yeah, that's how people used to think about this shit.
- [49:44]
W. David Marks
Yeah. So, I mean, what's interesting. I mean, so Paris Hilton was widely reviled. At the same time, if you were to describe 2010's culture and you didn't mention Paris Hilton, then, like, what are you doing?
- [49:57]
Ian
Yeah, I was watching my sister was watching the Simple Life, you know, endlessly for the years 2000, whatever, three. Exactly 2006 or whatever.
- [50:08]
W. David Marks
So she is the definitional figure of that era. And, you know, Kim is kind of Kim, Paris walks so Kim can run, you know, kind of situation. And what is so definitional, I think about the Paris Hilton story is, number one, that she was mostly unpopular in the sense of, like, if you ask someone, is Paris Hilton good or bad? The data seems that most people thought she was bad, but she would. She could win attention always. And that. That became the thing that was the currency of the time. So it didn't matter if everybody hated her, as long as they were reporting on her, she was winning. And then the second is because there was a lot of ugly misogyny in. In the critiques of her. And because hating her became a cliche to be like, oh, she's just famous for being famous. It's just not an original or interesting thing to say. The. The counterintuitive, cooler thing to say is like, actually, Paris Hilton is great.
- [51:07]
Ian
Right.
- [51:08]
W. David Marks
And so now we're kind of in this, like, actually, Paris Hilton was amazing. Like, she, like, she was this empowered entrepreneur kind of. And, you know, stars Are Blind was an incredible song that slept on.
- [51:20]
Ian
That's right.
- [51:22]
W. David Marks
And so there's this. I think there's actually this new pro Paris Hilton sentiment. And so we've like, adjusted it. But I read her memoir for. For the book, and I mean, it's fat. It's a fascinating document because obviously it's like ghost written. But the way she wanted it goes written is bizarre and says a lot about her in the whole book. She's, you know, again, a massively successful person in the 21st century. In this whole book, all she wants you to know is she's a victim. That's like. That is what the book is about. It's like my victimhood.
- [51:52]
Ian
Everyone is a victim. Even the biggest winners in the fucking culture. Everyone's a victim.
- [51:57]
W. David Marks
This is like the sore, sore winner ism. And I mean, I would put Kanye west and Donald Trump in this category, but Paris Hilton is just like, no, you don't understand how victimized I am and was. And it's fascinating because also, she really isn't someone who had good intentions but was maligned. I think she's very open that her intention was, I'm going to become very rich and famous. And that is what's important to me. And so you can't go back and say she just wanted to do this simple artistic thing and she got swept up in this gossip TMZ world. I mean, that was her point from the very beginning. And so it is. It seems to be okay to criticize her as maybe not the greatest influence on culture in the 21st century. I don't think that is a. That that bold of position, but I would say it's almost. I don't want to go too far, but I would say the. The vague general sense I get of where people are with her is that she was unfairly criticized and. And she. She has some positive things that we should all celebrate.
- [53:00]
Ian
Yeah, no, I think that's what amounts to a contrarian take these days. Towards the end of the book, you reference the ape appearance with Jimmy Fallon and her. Which is one of, to me, one of the 2000s defining cultural documents. If you just need to know. Whatever year that was, 21, 22 was like, that's the window. Exactly. But that made me think of the. Her. Her Letterman appearance, which you might remember, but from. I think back in the Simple Life era, where, like, Letterman is just like Just like, you know, mocking her to her face as she's sitting there on the couch like that. I mean, I guess that is the lens through which people are going to say, oh, you know, she is a victim. She was maligned. But, like, I don't know. To me it's like, call a spade a spade, right? Like, that's. There are some things worth just like, not over complicating and over intellectualizing. And like, that is, to me, that is one of them.
- [53:57]
W. David Marks
How have you been? You all right?
- [53:58]
Ian
Good.
- [53:59]
W. David Marks
Good to be back in New York. Yeah. Good to have you here.
- [54:00]
Ian
How much time do you spend in New York City? A lot. Not as often as I'd like. Which do you prefer, New York City or Los Angeles? I like both. I like the weather in LA better.
- [54:08]
W. David Marks
But I love New York City. New York City's exciting, though, isn't it? I was born here. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you.
- [54:13]
Ian
How'd you like being in jail?
- [54:17]
W. David Marks
But she showed, I think, look, she and Trump are incredibly related to. To a degree I didn't understand until I wrote this book, which in. On a personal level, they're related. She was in his modeling agency at some point. Barron Trump is named after her grandfather. Like, those families are very connected. And she said she voted for Trump in 2016 and then claimed to not have voted at all. Whatever the case, her and Trump are close. But I think the things she proved, and that Trump has built an entire political career out of, is that if you are faced with some sort of scandal or some sort of, wow, this goes beyond our social norms and you should feel bad about it, then if you just push through and you never apologize and you pretend like whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, there's just no other regulating mechanism to knock you out of the culture. And so we. Paris Hilton just said, okay, yeah, I've had these scandals. I'm just going to push through. I'm not going to apologize and feel bad about it, and I'm going to keep doing outrageous things and just. And do more outrageous things. And I think Kim has also done the same thing. Kanye and Trump have done the same thing. It just works. And so the way that our economy, the like, information economy works, online articles are successes when they get lots of clicks. If a click, if a love click and a hate click are the same click, it doesn't matter to an editor that we're going to write about Paris Hilton, even though everyone hates Paris Hilton, if that gets more clicks. So the editorial skews towards these people. And all they have to do to get attention is to break a social norm. So there's no. There's no punishment for breaking the social norm, but there's a ton of reward for breaking the social norm.
- [56:02]
Ian
Yeah. And so incentives line up towards that behavior.
- [56:05]
W. David Marks
Exactly. And so if I think that Paris Hilton was one of the first people to really, in this particular Internet era, make that work and never, never be canceled out. I mean, I think. I think her career hit a wall when she was in prison for that small stint.
- [56:22]
Ian
About that one. That was.
- [56:22]
W. David Marks
Yeah. And that. That was kind of like things slowed down for her a little bit. And then she reinvented herself as, like, a dj, and then she. She has not been as central as Kim has. But. But Trump is. I mean, there's. There's no way to explain Trump without that mechanism.
- [56:36]
Ian
I think that makes perfect sense. Let's shift this conversation back to. Back to the ostensible focus of this podcast music for a few more minutes before we wrap up. I wonder, just like you referenced this, you know, a couple places here and there, but like the concept of new musics, you know, new genres. I think hybridization certainly has been the defining method of operation across much of the music industry in the 21st century. And you make that point explicitly. You do also reference a couple new developments that have happened even relatively recently, just within the last five, ten years, I think. Like trap and Drill, for instance, you call out, I guess. Where do you. Do you see any other new. I think, hyper pop? You also mentioned Sophie and 100 Gex and stuff like that. Do you see new. New music, new genres, you know, on the, on the horizon anywhere? Are we, like, just completely beyond that point at this point?
- [57:37]
W. David Marks
So I, I think there have been new genres, and trap is massively successful in terms of things sounded one way before trap, and now everything sounds different after trap, including country music. Right. So. And. And the thing that makes me optimistic about human beings is there is this cultural stagnation. But where there's been instances of cultural invention like trap, they've been very successful. So I think people still want to hear new sounds. Hyper pop, obviously, is pretty aggressive, and there's. I think you could argue that maybe brat used elements of hyper pop.
- [58:15]
Ian
Sure.
- [58:16]
W. David Marks
Infused it with pop music.
- [58:17]
Ian
That's what makes it so difficult to listen to. That's why it's such a. Such a challenging record.
- [58:22]
W. David Marks
It's such a. It's the. It's the metal machine music of a time. So I. I think that these genres have been relatively successful it's very easy to say, though, in 25 years, have there been the appearance of more new genres compared to the 25 years before that? I think that's. That's a harder thing to argue. And then what I would say is, my guess is there's lots of little things happening on the margins that are not being elevated and picked up and they're not becoming movements. And some of that also is that, you know, what make Drill successful or grime. These are scenes in real places that, you know, in New York, there is a drill scene, or Chicago, there's a drill scene. In Atlanta, you know, the Atlantaness of Trap can't. Can't be separated from. And so the. Where there are real people making music in a real place that has been really crucial for the creation of a new genre. And I think just the Internet makes that more difficult because everyone's scattered. Kieran Press Reynolds is a critic who's diving into the trenches to find these new genres. And when you read what he writes about or talk to him, it does. He gives you the hope that there are people that are trying to do this. They're trying to make new genres and new sounds. The problem is I feel like I'm a relatively active consumer of new music, but not. I'm not digging in the trenches myself, but I'm just waiting for people to tell me, like, go listen to this, that those things aren't floating up enough and really gaining momentum. And I think some. A lot of that is a structural problem. So my hope is that there's people on the edges who are. Who are doing this thing that are making genres that are new or new sounds. But I think there is a connection problem where it's just not snowballing to the degree where you didn't say, this is a. This is a new sound and it is called Drill, or this is a new sound and it's called snow pop or whatever. It's going to be.
- [60:15]
Ian
Sure, yeah. I mean, that's a. That's a point that I come back to a lot of times talking to musicians, you know, artists who are touring or, you know, exist in a city or something like the death of a local, you know, physical scene. In reality, there's always going to be people making music in New York. There's certainly people making music in Los Angeles these days. But like, you know, where I live, San Francisco, for instance, had like a flourishing, a vibrant rock music scene 10, 15 years ago. The band Girls, for instance, which I always talk about, one of my very favorites of all time. And it's just been sort of just, you know, wiped away, just decimated. And I don't think that. That San Francisco is unique in that. In that way. I think, you know, virtually any city has faced the same sort of, you know, waves of whatever, you know, economic pressures, political pressures, social pressures that force that to happen. And so a lot of the scene making shifts to online, but unfortunately, you know, Discord and soundcloud are just not like a replacement for like a club where everyone can be and play the music and hang out in reality.
- [61:15]
W. David Marks
Yeah. If you have a club night and it is based around an emerging genre and you know that if you create a new track that is in this new genre and it's going to get played and you know that you want to impress these other producers that are going to be at the party and other DJs, then now you have this great incentive to say, like, okay, things used to be this way. I'm going to do it this new style and I'm going to exaggerate that style a little bit. And then you're going to play this thing and then if people respond to it, they're going to go back and they're going to do the same thing again. And then it's snowballing, snowballing, where it's like you have breakbeat and the breakbeat becomes drone and bass. Or, you know, the. These evolutions happen because you have a particular place in which there's some sort of social interaction that fosters the development and the delineation of these genres. And so that, again, it's like if you're just throwing it out into the ether of the Internet and it doesn't seem like there's a group of small people doing this. It's difficult. What I think Kieran is talking about a little bit with some of these, like, really obscure genres online is it is a group of people in like a Discord who are trying to impress each other.
- [62:19]
Ian
Right.
- [62:20]
W. David Marks
And that seems much closer to what a scene used to be. But obviously there's just more disadvantages if these are anonymous people in a Discord rather than like a particular place in London.
- [62:30]
Ian
Totally. I wonder, I mean, you're. You're obviously based in. In Tokyo. Do you get the sense that, like, does all this shit work differently there? Because I do feel like, you know, like kind of the urban fabric of a place like Tokyo, from what I read, at least, never having been like, seems healthier than it, you know, it is in America, at least in terms of Like, I don't know, rents for commercial spaces and bars and clubs like that. Like, does that manifest differently in reality?
- [62:56]
W. David Marks
Absolutely. I mean, I think what. Music is hard everywhere, but if you look at, say, fashion, food, beverage, bars, things like that, Tokyo feels very, very vibrant because it is relatively inexpensive to operate a store, to operate a studio, to get the materials needed to make things. And then there's a scene. I mean, if you think about fashion, there's a lot of really obsessed designers who are trying to outdo each other and can see each other's work. And the competition is really fierce. And so if you want to make a brand, you're gonna push yourself a lot harder because you have to impress everyone to get in the market. And there's small scenes, and everybody knows each other because it's geographical. So I think that that does help Tokyo have this vibrant culture. And I look, I think one of the failings of my book Blank Space is that I talk about music, movies, tv, and maybe these. These, because they need so much industrial support at this point, are not where the creativity is. So one argument is the creativity is happening in online video. I think that there's problems with meme and short videos where they just can't be consumed the way an album is consumed, because you just don't. There's very few videos you watch over and over and over again and get the depth from, like, right from an album, and there's, like. It just doesn't have as much content as a novel. Okay. But then I would say food and clothing are two areas where things are getting better. That, like, the food that we're eating is just better food than we used to eat. And the. The. If you're into clothing, you have more options than ever before. And they're beautiful things. I have. I have more nice clothes than I can wear, right? And so, like, I just don't have the time to wear all the nice things that I own. And it's like, when I outgrow something, I always feel good about it. Like, finally, I can put something. Something out of my closet. And so from that perspective, culture is vibrant in certain areas where individuals are able to act because of the barriers being really low, where there's an audience that's really hungry for what they're doing, and where there's a sense of competition, where they're pushing each other and they're not trying to go, like, massive scale immediately, because you can't. And so I think one of maybe the dangers with music and video is because, you know you can reach 2 billion people without any friction whatsoever. Then it's like, well, why wouldn't I just make something that 2 billion people can understand immediately? Where for fashion, it's like, I still got to make the shirts and they got to be bought by some people. And I can only start with this certain scale because I have this much money and they have to go to these stores. And so I'm going to maximize for that audience first and then kind of grow from there. And so the slow growthness which used to be part of music, I've never thought about this until saying it now. But you know, if you were making indie records before, it was much more like making an indie fashion line.
- [65:45]
Ian
Sure.
- [65:46]
W. David Marks
And so today it's like, it's just that promise of, of instant global recognition that taints the. It makes people much less patient.
- [65:54]
Ian
Media that can be sort of distributed across the world instantly to, you know, the entire, the entire globe. Yeah, you, you have this, you have this great line somewhere in the book. I forget where exactly, but I think you just say, you can't download a blazer. And you know, that is true.
- [66:10]
W. David Marks
Let me give you a little writerly trick, which is I came up with that phrase like 15 years ago. I was like, I got to use that in the book some at some point.
- [66:18]
Ian
The whole purpose of the book was to be able to get that one line there. Yes, but no, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, I dabble a little bit in, you know, fashion, you know, just, you know, information basically. Certainly not myself as a maker or anything, but like, I get the sense from like reading Blackbird, Spy Plane for instance, that like the, the, you know, ecosystem of small designers, many of whom are certainly, you know, based in Japan these days, like that almost like has the same sort of feeling to me as like, I don't know, reading about Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors used to feel like on Pitchfork in 2008 or whatever. It's interesting.
- [66:56]
W. David Marks
I agree. And he's a great example of where critics are playing a great role, which is that he introduces his audience to all these great high quality brands that they wouldn't know otherwise. And then those brands succeed because of that ecosystem.
- [67:09]
Ian
Absolutely. That might be a great place to leave it here. Any final thoughts, statements to lodge on, I don't know, culture in the 21st century?
- [67:22]
W. David Marks
I mean, I'll just say one thing about my book, which is that all the reviews just summarize it as if it's like a big political Essay just describing the culture is terrible, but that's only the intro. So I guess the main point is it. The book mostly is a timeline of just like, here's what happened. And I try, I tried to give you quotes from the people in the moment rather than me editorializing always. But, you know, even if you're skeptical about or annoyed by my main thesis, I think you'll still get some value of just reading back through the history in the linear fashion.
- [67:59]
Ian
Absolutely, yeah. No, I mean, I was thrilled to see. I mean, one of the chapters, I think is called Capitalist Surrealism. You know, obviously a nod towards Mark Fisher, one of my favorite writers and a brilliant kind of cultural theorist himself, but one who, as approachable as he can be compared to, I don't know, Baudrillard, Adorno, Jameson or whatever. Like, he can still get kind of lost in the sauce, so to speak. So, you know, I think what's so great about this is that it has that same sort of sharp, incisive, strong viewpoint that a Capitalist Realism or A Ghost of My Life has, you know, Mark Fisher texts, but is also honestly, compulsively readable. I gotta say, it's a little bit popular and I think that's a great thing.
- [68:38]
W. David Marks
I think when I finished it, I was like, this is the most pop thing I've ever done. And I hope that, I hope that's true. Like, to me it seems that way and I hope other people enjoy it. But I, I noticed when I was. I had to edit my previous book, Status and Culture quite a bit and just going through the whole book again was like a three or four day project. It was like, ugh, okay. Because it just, it is dense and there's a lot of theory in there where this one, I. I ended up doing an edit pass in just 24 hours. I was like, that's a good sign that I can kind of speed through this. So, yeah, again, it's like if you're also looking for something speedy, even if it's a little long, I think this book is not too much of a slog, so.
- [69:14]
Ian
Not at all. Dave Marks, thank you so much.
- [69:18]
W. David Marks
Thank you so much for having me.
- [69:33]
Musical Interlude / Outro Singer
I don't mind spending some time just hanging here with you.
- [69:42]
Ian
Thanks again to W. David Marks, author of Blank Space, A Cultural history of the 21st century. Hell of a conversation. I feel like we barely even scratched the surface of what I wanted to cover. But I think that's, that's the sign of a good interview and certainly a good piece of work. A good book. A great book. There's so much here. Such a rich, detailed and sort of methodical assessment of where we're at, where we came from, what went wrong, and how we fix it. Like I was saying there at the end, there's a real kind of, you know, intelligence and logic and heft to a lot of what David writes about in this book. But at the same time, it doesn't get sort of, you know, navel gaze y or tripped up on its own. On its own high concept exegesis or whatever. It is in its own way a work of pop culture all on its own, uses that to its great advantage. The master's tools, so to speak. So grab the book links in the episode Description when you're finished, pick up Amatora if you're a bit of a menswear nut like me Jokerman.
- [71:01]
Musical Interlude / Outro Singer
Love what you want if tomorrow the world ends why shouldn't we be with the one we really love? Now tell me who have you been dreaming of? I am I alone oh no oh even though the gods are crazy Even though the stars are black if you show me real love baby I'll show you mine I can make it nice tonight Make a devil and angel too Got a heart and soul and body let's see what this love can do you maybe I'm perfect for you. This moment is gonna go.