Lol I made one of those a couple months ago but I’m not brave enough to post it.

Modern pop - which I define as what you typically hear on commercial radio, but you could also define as the trending artists on digital platforms - is very safe, very conservative, and very listener friendly.

But…to use an example that’s relevant to your question, you can look at the rise of punk rock in the 70’s. Punk was a reaction to the growing popularity of Progressive Rock artists like King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Rush, and similar artists that dabbled in complex harmony, polyrhythm, mixed/odd meters, and so on. Punk artists felt that these were becoming too elitist and exclusive and said, hey, how about we just play three chords and say fuck a lot? Let’s make music anyone can pick up a cheap guitar and learn in five minutes!

In 2026 I’d be hard pressed to identify a popular musical style that’s pushing the boundaries of listenability to the point of sparking a backlash. And we just had a couple of these not that long ago anyway: Minimalism in the 60’s and my aforementioned Punk movement. I’d say we’re in kind of a lull at the moment, though it’s not hard to look at all the styles and genres that sprang out of Punk and see where they’re going. But these patterns span decades, sometimes centuries. It may not happen again in our lifetime.

A pendulum is a good way of looking at it. What you see in the Medieval period is, as an example, musicians writing more and more challenging lines to sing. Wider leaps, rapid-fire phrases…and this is how they show off their skills. You see this more in the secular music of the day, as the church is constantly pushing for sacred music that doesn’t call attention to itself. But, the backlash happens because while those complex, jagged lines might be lots of fun for the singer, not so much for the listener. And so begins a movement toward vocal lines that are easier on the ears - smoother, more melodic, easier to sing, which also lines up nicely with developments in counterpoint and polyphony that allow major forms like the motet to come into being.

And of course musicians, not being able to help themselves, start competing with each other to write more and more complex motets, which sparks another aesthetic backlash, and it all starts again.

This is a gross simplification of course but just to give you an idea how this all works.

With reactions

I wouldn’t say I’m socialist. My brother isn’t very social, and I’m socialer than him, though not as social as my little sister. She’s really the socialist.

I define suffering the same way I define art:

• I know it when I see it
• I can look at someone’s suffering, call it suffering, while some pretentious jagoff next to me goes, “Pff, that’s not suffering. You clearly don’t know what real suffering is.”
• Some suffering I like, some suffering I don’t.
• I had to go to school to learn about other people’s suffering.
• Some of us hide our suffering and some display it
• Some people use their suffering to make money
• I tried to show other people my suffering and they laughed at it. So I don’t show people my suffering anymore.

The title of my talk is “Innovation as Rebellion against Complexity.”

I’ll start with my experience studying and teaching music history, and demonstrate how every major musical stylistic shift over the past 1500 years or so can be seen as a revolt against excessive complexity developing in the previous style. One example would be the shift from thick, complex polyphony that had become the norm in late Renaissance music, to the relatively simple and much-easier-on-the-ears style of early homophonic music. But I’d actually touch on all periods of music history.

I’d then challenge my audience to ask themselves and each other if this trend can be seen in other fields as well. Do we see such innovative rebellions in, say, art? Or literature? Architecture? The sciences? And what about technology…

…and are we on the cusp of a new rebellion against the massively complex technology that’s thrust upon us today? What does that look like? What innovations await us at the conclusion of that revolution?

I mean I’d be winging the fuck out of it with only a few seconds to prep but wouldn’t that be great to talk about?

You can see I’ve done a lot of thinking about this lol.

I love Infected Mushroom, and like you, I haven’t been thrilled with their recent releases, and I really don’t have any similar suggestions, but…

Missio recently dropped a new album, and are worth getting to know if you don’t know them.

I also listen to a looooooot of Jack White. Just pick anything. Literally anything.

And keep the rural poor and uneducated from realizing that they’re one of the groups.

Hancock? Is that the movie you were thinking of?

Yes to a point, but consider…

I’m saving this for reasons I’m not proud of.

I came across this stuff completely by accident doing a search for “Jazz dominant chord guitar charts” and I am absolutely not kidding. Internet is fucking weird.

Ice cream cake

I try to be as patient as I can with her because I still care about her. She’s got a lot of mental health struggles and she’s been through hell. Sometimes she takes it out on me in ways she doesn’t intend, and 99% of the time I can just confront her directly and that solves the problem. I already confronted her about this, and I haven’t decided if I believe her story yet but at least she knows where I stand. Legal action is the nuclear option but I’m hoping that this gets resolved well before that.