I'll Bet You Want To

 Is poptimism over?

I mean obviously it is, but I was thinking this earlier while I revisited the albums that I was into during the phase of all snobby music fans getting extremely into major label pop music in the first half of the decade. I gave Teenage Dream, 1989, and weirdly Little Machines by Lights a lot of spins from like 2013-2015, as all of a sudden it seemed like a veil had been lifted from my eyes and I realized that mainstream pop music is actually fun to listen to. It was similar to when you grow up a white rock music fan and realize that you were actually so so wrong about rap music. Poptimism even leaked into other parts of my listening habits, as revisiting those pop albums made me think of West Coast Babes by The Canyon Rays, which I thought was awesome at the time because it merged Katy Perry and the Cars, but in hindsight is a lot closer to average.

Another weird thing was that I actually hadn't seen the music videos for a lot of the songs I was into at the time, because I am a serious white music fan. Watching them today made them seem like they were from 20 years ago, even though it doesn't feel like that long. I guess that 7 or so years is enough time for style to change and everyone to stop rolling up the sleeves on their t-shirts, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, and "cute" animal onesies to go out of style. Also a surprising amount of teased male hair?

In hindsight, I think that Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION was the crest of this whole thing. Even though I never listened to it, not for any sort of reason, it was catnip for dumb music snobs like me and the narrative of her being known for a dumb single but then putting out a "serious independent album" seemed to drive people, but especially men, crazy. 

Maybe men listening to pop music was the reason the whole thing happened? Taylor Swift and Katy Perry had been around for ages already, but pop was finally good because rock was dead and white guys had nothing else to listen to. Maybe we'll ruin something else next.

What a bad ending! Wow! Don't know bro, I just wanted to write and don't have anything else to say!