Looking at this list again, that song had as important an impact on music/social culture as Britney/Eminem/etc, but on an entirely different and positive tip. It opened people up to one of the most innovative hip-hop crews of all-time, and opened the door for indie rockers to get into other ‘real’ hip-hoppers like the Clipse, Ghostface, ect.

There’s a part of me that has hope for the next gen of kids, in part due to the post-culture that’s rapidly developing, but mostly thanks to what you’ve termed “Obamanation.” I’d like to think that with kids equally versed in Bright Eyes, Kanye West, Justice, etc without the genre-specific alliances of the past married to the idea that good guys CAN win will result in some truly groundbreaking music sooner than later…

double true.

Why didn’t they have the song you still remember but you don’t remember who they are category?

I quite like that bit- matter of fact I had nightmares just like it after watching TRL those days.

The monoculture, for me, began to die with the advent of tightly formatted niche radio in the 1980s, which reached new levels of atomization by the ’90s. The process was accelerated by the advent of hip-hop, a genre that entire other formats/niches were formed and/or strengthened in order to oppose. (The rise of adult-contemporary radio and country radio in the ’90s — from previously solid genres to total radio-dial domination — can be attributed directly to Top 40′s late embrace of hip-hop.)

TRL was, for a subset of youth culture, a nice bit of last-gasp monoculture aggregation, but it’s not like it embraced everything. (I mean, Radiohead never made the daily Top 10, even while they were scoring No. 1 albums. Or the White Stripes, say.) Still, I buy the idea that TRL became a fairly genre-ecumenical locus of all things pop, in the broadest sense of that word.

But: yeah: “final nail.” You called it on that one.

i’ll never forget the first time i saw the “baby one more time” video either, but i had the opposite reaction. i was in best buy, and it was on all the discounted TVs that are shoved off to the side, away from the expensive big-screens. at this point the stores were already pumping in “best buy radio”, which tries to sell artists no one otherwise has any interest in. i thought this was the visual extrapolation of best buy radio. i truly thought she was some kind of femme-bot shill for best buy who i’d never hear of again. the catholic school-girl outfit just seemed like some desperate male fantasy (it was, and it worked like a charm) and the hook sounds more powerful in retrospect than it did at the time. it wasn’t exactly, “with the lights out it’s less dangerous,” you know?

i’m not sure how exactly one sweeping cultural movement will present itself in the niche age (obamanation?), but the Beast must assume control and fulfill the Scriptures somehow, so…you know, count on it.

After watching the crash-and-burn histrionics that resulted from what I’ll call the “Lollapalooza generation” (which pretty much ended when Kurt killed himself), the time was ripe for some shiny, happy people to come along and entertain the young kiddies scared of stuff like Marilyn Manson and hip-hop gangsters.

@westartedthis: The “alternative nation” pretty much did this to themselves (ourselves?).

We held up icons like Billy Corgan (self-righteous ass), Courtney Love (sad drug-addled victim), Trent Reznor (drug-addled death obsessive) and Kurt Cobain (suicide)–of course kiddies ran straight for a new wave of shiny, happy people like Britney, *Nsync, et al.

Hell, even I was seduced by it all. I’ll never forget the first time I saw “Baby One More Time” on MTV. Same goes for “My Name Is…” The immediacy of those songs was undeniable.

And while I should validated now that the “cool” sites have come full circle to celebrate such unabashed pop, I do find myself calling bullshit on most of them acting like to appreciate Britney Spears NOW is some profound moment of enlightenment. Especially since most were the same ones that thought crap like Avril Lavigne was something special. Um, no.

’nuff said.

Nice piece, Mike. Though for me, the sound of the orchestra hit is the sound of the Pet Shop Boys, and it just breaks my heart that they never produced for anyone on this list.