April 6, 2016

Takeaways from Wisconsin primary

First, the good news is that Bernie won again (no identity politics among Dems when the state is white), although not by the margin he needs to in order to lock up the nomination. Still, whatever damages Hillary before the general is good, especially if it's setting up the expectation of a populist shaking up the Establishment. A good number of the Bernie voters in Wisconsin are hipster faggots, but he can't sweep the state relying only on them. That leaves plenty of normal Democrats who could cross over to Trump in the fall.

As for the Republicans, the results are not too different from Ohio, where Trump got the same share of the vote as in surrounding states, but where the non-Trump vote could better coalesce around a favorite son. Trump getting 35% in Wisconsin, to Cruz's 48%, is probably a similar story -- only with the favorite son being Paul Ryan, who by now is more or less out of the closet as the choice of a brokered convention.

CNN's exit polls showed that 55% of Wisconsin voters wanted Trump to get the nomination even if he doesn't get 50%+1 delegates, and only about half of these folks were Trump voters -- the rest were non-Trump voters who still thought that whoever wins the primary ought to get the nomination, even if they fall short of a majority of delegates. On the other hand, 43% of voters wanted the Party leaders to hit reset and pick a new candidate if none of the existing candidates got a majority of delegates. And of these folks, a large majority voted for Cruz.

So in this case, voting for Cruz was not just values-voter retards, but those who simply don't want Trump and want the Convention rigged to cancel out the voters, now that it's clear that all their initial choices have flopped.

Wisconsin always did look a bit iffy, though. I didn't want to jinx it, so I didn't bring it up beforehand, but recall this map of inferred Trump support way back from December. Wisconsin barely registers, while Louisiana does. Although the primary border is the Mississippi River, there is a secondary effect of north vs. south along this border -- Trump country goes a little farther west at the southern part, and recedes farther east at the northern end.

I discussed the basics of the geography in this post, invoking the idea of rootedness. Places west of the Mississippi were settled much later than back East. And even some out West are more rooted than others -- California more than Colorado, for instance. We can bet that Trump will do better in CA than in CO. Along the Mississippi River itself, settlement began in the south in what is now Louisiana, since the explorers began there and navigated their way up north.

I'll try to put harder numbers on that hunch later, basically looking at when there was triple-digit population increase within a state. That doesn't last forever -- only early on when it's wide open, after which it declines to double-digit increase, or even negative rates. Suffice it to say for now that Wisconsin's population began to stabilize decades later than Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, etc.

On top of that, I get the impression that the areas that cucked hard for Cruz -- along the densely populated eastern part of the state -- are transplant magnets, where Wisconsinites from the more rural parts of the state have descended in search of greener pastures, so to speak. People who leave their roots behind are more likely to vote for a "more of the same" candidate like Cruz, whereas those who have stayed true to their roots (particularly up in the north of the state) are going to resonate more with "Make America Great Again".

That makes Wisconsin look like other places in the Plains, like Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. Trump did well in the rural areas there, but not so well in the cities and their suburbs, where you find newly arrived middle-class strivers who are embarrassed about the rural origins of their parents and grandparents. They don't want to restore the former glory of the land of their kin, they just want to be able to hire cheap Mexican day laborers for when they remodel their bathroom and passively-aggressively show it off to their neighbors.

Speaking of attitudes, obviously Trump the Warrior was not going to do well in the non-confrontational Lutheran Belt. Taken together with the Utah results, he's not going to do well where there's a large concentration of Nordic people (including those from the Lutheran, i.e. northern/eastern, regions of Germany). Trump cleaned up in neighboring Illinois, not only because of all the founding stock in an early settled state, but because the Nordic weenies were diluted by the Mediterraneans and Slavs of metro Chicago -- who also helped him secure Michigan, and will go on to help him secure the entire Northeast.

This replicates what we see back in the European homelands, regarding the Muslim migration -- Germany and Scandinavia are mostly screwed, Eastern Europe is telling them to go somewhere else, the Meds are waving them up toward the gullible Nords, and the Celts are keeping them away too.

To end with a silver lining, CNN's exit polls showed no sex difference for either Cruz or Trump, whereas what happens usually is that Cruz begs for the women's vote while Trump wins the men's vote. After the neverending "war on women" narrative being pushed by the propaganda machine, you'd think Trump would've tanked with women. But he did exactly the same with men and women.

Remember, the Trump phenomenon is not only a political one, but an anti-media movement. He's been calling out all sorts of dishonesty in the media since he first began, and it's one of the things that resonates the strongest with voters. All those millions of dollars of attack ads in Florida couldn't stop him from winning by double digits over a sitting Senator and darling of the Establishment. And now we see that two straight weeks of "women hate Trump" not only failed to persuade the women of Wisconsin, if anything they rallied more to his defense. Ordinary people side with an honest person who's being vilified by the corrupt media.

And with that, Cruz has plum run out of largish states from cuck country. He needed to win all the delegates tonight, and will come up well short of that, meaning he'll now have to win an even higher percent of those remaining. After the initial several days of "OMG Trump lost," the narrative will shift inevitably toward, "Wow, Lyin' Ted needs like 90% of the remaining delegates -- and in the Northeast!"

It'll be like Iowa, where the Plains cucks had several weeks of impotent gloating before getting curbstomped in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and Super Tuesday.

Trump will also be rolling out his list of Supreme Court nominees, which will get everyone talking about something more important.


  1. I almost feel bad for the Germanic plains/midwest folk: they're earnest, but gullible in the extreme; easy prey for shyster Cruz. For one egregious example, remember how the Hasidic Heebs took over that small town in Iowa and left the locals to deal with all the Mesoamerican labor once they were evicted by the feds.

  2. Golden Flowers4/6/16, 10:13 AM

    In Wisconsin: low turnout, stupid caucuses and some democrats apparently not bothering to vote on Justices when they voted in the primary means Kloppenburg has lost and so Wisconsin is going to take an even harder, more brutal dicking from Scott Walker in the future.

    Democrats man....

    Also apparently lots of long lines, both for IDs and for voting, because Wisconsin is run by a party trying to stop people from voting. Woo!

  3. BioCultBeamDelta4/6/16, 11:19 AM

    What are Trump's chances on the left coast right now? You've said Cruz won't play here, and I've read that Trump still has an 8 point lead in California. As one of the few life long left coasters, I sincerely hope my region gets on the Trump Train.

  4. This was a shot across the bow by the Anti-Trumpers. They put a lot of their eggs into the basket of beating Trump in Wisconsin. Lots of money spent, lots of influence, and uniting around Cruz tl beat Trump.

    I really think the Establishment is using a feint/ bait-and-switch with Ryan. They really are behind Cruz 100%, but don't want him to be seen as "Establishment". They at least get that the Establishment guy's have a really bad taste in most average Republicans' mouths right now--the brand is dirty. And Cruz, the longtime Bush insider and Senator with a Goldman Sachs wife, is no anti-Establishment guy; he's more of an upstart trying to claw further ahead rather than waiting hsi turn. He's known as weaselly, and his immigration overtures are just political hackery-he's told donors he won't do anything to enforce immigration or build any wall.

    So the Establishment puts money into Cruz winning, but downplays talking about Cruz and talks up Ryan winning at a brokered convention---thinking past the sale, because who says such a brokered convention is inevitable?

    Then, come convention time, they float Ryan, and the Trump supporters revolt and vote him down, and then, *magically*, Cruz suddenly gets pushed and the Establishment claims Cruz is a "compromise" candidate and they want to "end this divisiveness" despite "disagreeing" with Cruz (cue their camera-ready sighs of "discontentment"). After all, Cruz won a lot a delegates, so it's not anti-democratic, right?

    That's the plan---use Ryan as a stalking horse for Cruz while getting Cruz as many delegates as possible to legitimize him while downplaying talking about his wins. "The Cleveland Surprise," they'll call it.

    This is what they planned on Sea Island. I see Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it, as well as Koch and Soros money. And Google was there (they went to the Sea Island meeting) to insure that any searches on the election reduced Cruz in popularity and raised Ryan's.

    A carefully planned coup folks.

  5. Spot on..

    Not seeing/ hearing a lot of Trump love around these parts. Plenty of right-wing, conservative folks here, too.

    I've seen some Carson and Bernie bumper stickers. Met some Mormons who told me that Trump "scares" them and that they're voting for Kasich.

    My gf commutes to downtown LA on the 405 and regularly sees the "Trump Truck", a van festooned with Trump's face and Trump campaign slogans.

    Trump seems to be faltering. What happened to the warrior who came out swinging last summer?

  6. Trump's lack of knowledge about how the nitty-gritty work of a campaign is leading his team into a long-haul they simply aren't prepared for. I have no doubt that they expected Trump's support to keep growing and for the race to settle down like it used to.

    This hasn't happened. Trumpmania hasn't disappeared, but the NeverTrump crowd is full of energy trying to stop him and has all the resources Trump doesn't seem to have.

    I really expected him to get it together by now and underestimated the strength of his enemies. You can contest the role of Presidential match-up polls all you want, but I think that seeing Trump do the worst on these polls is keeping people from coming around to him. It hasn't brought Kasich any success, but that's a factor that can't be ignored.

  7. Cruz has been acting like a dick for ages. Why would he have a change of heart? He's cozying up right now to try and win the nom. and the election. Once he's in the White House, do we really know if he'd be Bush part 2?

    Obama, Rubio, Kasich, and Jeb spent decades brushing up on the finer points of how to play the establishment/globalist game. Rubio opted (or was blackmailed) into supporting amnesty. Kasich voted for every free trade bill. Obama let his advisors and the media create his image since Obama is well aware of his own mediocrity.

    I think Cruz is a slimebag, but I also believe that the establishment has reservations about how controllable Cruz is. Keep in mind that Rubio, Kasich, and possibly Jeb are all fags and therefore are part of the mutual blackmail that's pervasive in the current decadent climate. Obama probably is a poofer too.

    Cruz is undoubtedly straight which if anything made the establishment more reluctant to welcome Cruz in the past. He's got skeletons in his closet, sure, but it's not like he's worried about being outed.


    A carefully planned coup folks."

    That was a while ago, wasn't it? The elite's opinions rapidly shift with the polling and the outcome of each primary. It's only been in the last couple weeks that they went all in on Cruz. Cuck icons like Lindsay Graham were badmouthing Cruz big time earlier. And they were doing it to try and sink Cruz and Trump. If Cruz really was "the guy" Jeb and Rubio would never even have run.

    I don't think we should give the elites too much credit. The most effective henchmen so far have been the legions of Cruz cultists who both actually voted (some of them probably twice) and who persuaded officials to look the other way while fraud occured. Cruz outperformed the polls in several states with venal anti-Trump zealots like Utah and Iowa. And Texas? It's Cruz's and the Bush's backyard. Anyone believe that every Trump vote was counted properly? If Cruz had a loss or even a narrow victory, it would've killed his campaign. Those 104 delegates have been Cruz's life support.

  8. For those skeptical about fraud, consider this: Some of the polls are outright rigged. And the media focuses on the polls that put Cruz in the best light. "So, these two polls show Cruz with a 10 point lead." Voila, Cruz wins by 13 points. Better then expected, but not drastic enough to make people wonder just how he managed it.

    And in Wisconsin, where would they be pulling crap? In regions with a lot of voters and/or regions where Cruz is expected to do well. Just rig things a bit in several districts where good things are expected. Let Trump have a token district or two in the boondocks. With Ryan, Priebus, and Walker fully on board (and even the local media getting in on the act) it's all the easier to pull off. And the vehemently anti-Trump general media has been completely silent on reports that in Texas, Trump voters could not get the machine to take their vote off Rubio or Cruz.

    Stopthesteal.org is being run by Trump supporters. You can donate to it.

    Consider also that Trump has mostly NOT outperformed the polls. A state needs to have an overwhelming number of Trump voters and a sound election system for him to get a fair shake.

  9. https://newrepublic.com/article/132423/youre-trumpkin-youre-trumpkin-way?utm_content=buffer0e89e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    It's nice that at least one person acknowledges that there are differences between white people beyond religion or region. But he still gets it wrong. The heavily Scots/Irish South went crazy for Trump. The writer cluelessly talks about Northern vs. Southern. vs Central Euros. Um, it's the flatlanders vs. the hillbillies that really matters.

    He's right about the state's whiteness being bad for Trump. But just the same the state would've done a lot better without the dour moralism and haughtiness lurking beneath the civil exterior of Nords. The more convivial Germans and Scots Irish stayed in the South and lower Midwest, with some eventually drifting out to Texas/Oklahoma. And California later still.

    The pissier Germans and Scandies ended up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. When CNN interviewed one Boomer couple, the husband looked miserable. You could tell his wife had been nagging him for weeks to vote against Trump.

  10. Seems the old Dem coalition of the Catholic working class, non-aristocratic Southrons, and the amoral far west is backing Trump. "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," as the Gilded Age GOP (ID politic shysters of their time) called it.

  11. It wouldn't surprise me if the very eastern parts of Texas (where the original Southern settler stock predominates) were "stolen" from Trump. West of that you have a lot of transplants and some of the worst "striver" types in the country, it's Joel Olsteen/John Hagee territory. The Texanization of the South proper has been a scourge over the past few decades.

  12. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfTIcEkUEAAjWFE.jpg

    An Eau Claire exit poll had Trump at 57% (!).

    Trump ended up with 37.8% officially. Has Cruz underperformed to a similar level anywhere?

    Is Trump's campaign and Trump himself waning? The media and the GOP have been relentlessly hammering away at him for months. "Trump" has become a trigger word for cucks, culture war twits, and Millennials. I sense that unless you're in a heavily Scots Irish area or a Mexican border state, it's unpleasant at best and dangerous at worst to admit being a Trump supporter.

    Since the early 90's the real backbone of America (earthy white guys) has learned to self-muzzle in the name of keeping the peace. Even as blacks, homos, immigrants, and useful idiot white liberals trash everything. Without the internet, we'd be at USSR levels of polite fiction. It pains me to say it, but the internet might've actually backfired to some degree. It serves as a release valve. Without this release we might've raised a lot more hell instead of consoling each other as things slipped further away.

  13. One thing that's been getting on my nerves is the whole "ground game" thing. What the hell does that even mean? Is that a charitable way of saying that henchmen are marauding about trying to rig elections? Honestly, I've never heard one explanation as to what "ground game" means.

    The media and GOP are desperately using euphemisms and sophistry to hide the corruption and chicanery.

    By the way, in Cruz land some dolts are saying that Trump is cheating and also that Trump "get's too much media coverage" (yet they tellingly don't specify whether it's positive or negative).

  14. From: http://unitedmediapublishing.com/report-trump-supporters-wisconsin-see-votes-switched-cruz/

    "THEY NEED POLL WATCHERS NOW, VIED YOUIR VOTE AND ANYTHING FUNNY, VID THE PARKINGLOT IF YOU SEE ANY BUSSES OR VANS. IF YOU FIND A MACHINE THAT IS MALFUNCTIONING TELL THEM ABOUT IT AND MAKE SURE THEY TAKE IT OFF LINE OR ASK FOR A PAPER BALLOT. Remember please report and Video anything shady or any election fraud taking place by the Cruz Camp. Report and document to the Trump camp office at 414-369-4010 and Milwaukee county sheriff if you see any identity theft, or voter fraud. Good Luck & God Bless, Lets Take back our Country!!! Trump Troops, See anything shady with the Cruz people Then remind them that identity theft identity impersonation (Especially if having a fake or altered identity) to deceive your identity from Voting to boarding a Bus, train or Plain is a Federal Felony. Just to use it for that that deceptive purpose especially Voter Fraud. Homeland Security and federal task force find illegal usage of such identifications from social security cards to drivers licenses It’s not only a felony to use them in a deceptive way like boarding a train or airplane and to commit voter fraud. Trump Troops stick around the polling areas to make sure Lying Ted’s Nose does not grow any longer."

    There you have it. I guess a quality "ground game" is having vans, buses, and planes shuttling repeat voters from one precinct to another. Wisc. is an open state, too. The GOP went to great lengths to steal this one. Somebody points out that S. Walker has a history of dubious election tactics too.

    Computer voting is a joke. Yes, paper ballots can be corrupted by at least it's harder. With computers, all you need to do is change a bit of code. Votes can be invalidated immediately without a trace. And there's been very little accountability of rigged computer voting since it would embarrass and possibly bankrupt the companies involved (said companies are usually run by powerful people). A wealthy Rubio supporter accused Microsoft of tampering in Iowa.


    Loved this piece. Wise words and most likely true I'm afraid.

  16. Marcus,

    Postville, IA. My dad's side of the family originated from just one county over from there. And you are absolutely correct; I experience it at every family gathering. Fortunately I have some Appalachian blood from my mom's side to balance things out.

  17. I don't see much role of fraud in the final results -- else Trump would not have won NH, SC, and NV by big margins, especially SC where he took 100% of the delegates. Or Florida, taking all 99.

    I'm sure there's fraud going on everywhere, but not enough to affect the final results much. Presenting evidence of fraud could be useful if he needs to unseat a handful of Cruz delegates here and a handful there, but it doesn't affect the big picture.

    Also not worth pushing because it demoralizes people unnecessarily, and puts them in a conspiracy theory mindset.

  18. "the Germanic plains/midwest folk: they're earnest, but gullible in the extreme; easy prey for shyster Cruz."

    At least they've got the rest of the country, back East, that can protect them. Right now, we have a weak federal government ("limited government"), so they're left wide open to be taken advantage of.

    But once we get a strong government again, we can enforce the border, deport the illegals, end sanctuary cities, and keep out the Muslim migration.

    Back in Europe, they don't have any larger government that can or will protect the Nordic societies. At least here, they're just some tiny little Scandi pocket that can be protected by a strong national government.

    1. BioCultBeamDelta4/7/16, 1:32 AM

      What is the European Union, then, if it isn't a "larger government."

  19. "What happened to the warrior who came out swinging last summer?"

    Check out his explosive rally in Bethpage NY tonight.

    No more "acting Presidential" for politics-as-theater Prairie cucks!

  20. Derrick, treat yourself to a (Trump) steak with butter. Your brain is deprived of neurotransmitters.

  21. Wisconsin was better than Minnesota, at least. Whether b/c it's east of the Mississippi, has more of a manufacturing base (historically), or has more western/southern Germans (Catholic) and not quite so many Scandis.

  22. "What is the European Union, then, if it isn't a "larger government.""

    Not one that can defend the borders, or that ever has.

  23. The EU is more like an empire (held together by soft power), maybe this was inevitable because the massive disparities between the various countries make it impossible to be a truly voluntary union. It certainly doesn't view the northern Europeans as anything other than gullible beasts of burden.

  24. Some analysis, not sure how accurate http://www.unz.com/isteve/wisconsin-postmortem/

  25. If we can't get Trump or Sanders, stick a fork in America. How the hell do so many people not recognize Cruz for the card carrying sociopath that he is? As time's gone by he's co-opted Trump's economic and immigrant schtick with MSM not bothering to explore Cruz's past support for the globalist she-bang. While we get endless analysis of Trump and his voters, what about the 1/5 of Americans who went for Cruz thus far? What do they see in him? I'd chalk some of it up to Jesus nuttery, but Wisconsin isn't a hot bed for that kind of thing.

    I hope the Lutheran belt is happy. Obstructing a champion for not affecting the faux restraint (in reality it conceals moralistic judgement of those whose presentation threatens calm sobriety) the area cherishes. And the media is spreading more BS about Wisconsin being a conservative redoubt. It ain't the slightest thing. The Lutheran belt is very liberal/Scandinavian in it's nature. Which includes being peaceful, trusting, and not sticking out to much. Merely having Republicans do well in recent WI elections is meaningless. The rhetoric of upper Midwestern Republicans is incredibly dainty and faux modest. Keep in mind that MN and WI consistently have voted for the Dem president since the mid 70's (with the exception of WI going for Reagan twice).

    Are people really that gullible? Stopping the big meanie is so important that we should favor an Ivy leaguer Bush crony lawyer with tenuous roots in America. Really? And Cruz even parallels Obama. The still young son of immigrant strivers with very little accomplishments (which doesn't stop Trump haters from bashing Trump's business practices).

    Early on I was elated by Trump's relative and unpredicted success. But as Cruz becomes more exposed and creepy, we ought to see Trump gaining at his expense. Is a Chris Matthews instigated abortion fiasco really enough to distract people from the slimebag? By the way, the media of course did not put the abortion thing into context, if you listen to the whole conversation Chris keeps poking and interrupting Trump until Chris gets the desired unappealing remark from Trump.

    Worth noting is that only around 13% of Wis. GOP voters said they'd be excited by Cruz winning. These gutless voters who don't vote for someone as much as against someone can go walk into traffic for all I care. They're steering us toward a busted convention. Without Trump, it's either creepy Ted (who'll only get the vote of a not right in the head overrated group of Jesus whackos and survivalist ammo stockpilers) or an establishment puppet who'll alienate all but a fair amount of Yuppie sell-out RINOS. Clinton would win by a decent margin or Sanders would run and slaughter the Republican.

  26. The people who support Cruz belong to either wing of the old Republican Party -- Cultural Right or corporate globalist.

    These people didn't vanish into thin air just because Trump came along. And they'll be dragged out of the political sphere kicking and screaming -- one because they think the apocalypse will hasten unless Cruz gets the nom, the other because they want Wall Street control over the whole world.

    We're beating their asses so far, and it looks to continue. You couldn't have expected a re-alignment with no opposition.

    The only thing left to do is further marginalize them in any way possible.

  27. I think it's been established that we detest thouroughly what's become of us since 1991.


    "At least since 1992, we've been struck by the dumbness and heartlessness it takes to judge adult candidates on the basis of things they said and did when they were 15 years old—or, in the case of one major profile of Candidate Gore, when they were already very annoying at the age of 6."

    It's interesting to me when people who have no conscious grasp of cocooning cycles (more or less the entire Earth notwithstanding the followers of this website) pick up on something not being quite right for a while at this point. Maybe a sign that people (usually the less conformist gender) are getting sick of cocooning.

    And we're more shallow and less empathetic in cocooning cycles. We're supposed to hold middle aged adults to the fire if they said or did something dumb as a kid?

  28. 1991 was of course the last year where genuine classic must own rock albums got made. Yeah, off topic, what better way to prove that things went in the shitter after 1991. In metal/hard rock alone, we had: Metallica S/T, P. Jam's Ten, Nirvana's Nevermind, GNR's double album, and a good Soundgarden album. I can't wait 'til turning on a modern rock/pop station becomes a non-chore again.

  29. Not to be too hard on Wisconsinites... they can redeem themselves if they primary out Paul Ryan by voting for Paul Nehlen in that Congressional district. He seems not just a generic Tea Party replacement, but one who focuses on populism and nationalism -- about as Trumpian as the Lutheran Belt can get.

    Looks like Governors in Wisconsin are not term-limited, so they need to primary out Walker in 2018 as well. (Gay-sich is term-limited in Ohio and out in 2018, thank God.)

    And after the Convention armageddon this summer, Reince Preibus will be too disgraced to continue as the head of the RNC.

    And with the loss of Speaker of the House, Gov of Wisconsin, and head of RNC, so long to the reign of Midwestern cuckservatism.

    I can understand Wisconsinites being too cucked to vote Trump over Cruz, but they ought to at least be able to uncuck their own state where local figures would be the face of change.

  30. BioCultBeamDelta4/8/16, 1:15 AM

    Don't mean to bring you down, Feryl, but even in 1990, Time Magazine was already running headlines like this:

    Anyways, I'm looking forward to New York. That should reestablish Trump's momentum.

  31. We really need Trump to win the nomination to insure Walker and his goonies who are destroying the state are thrown out of Wisconsin office. Walker is widely despised by the majority of WI who are not Republicans. It seems many independent minded Wisconsinites who were pumped up by the prospect of Trump winning lost confidence and either stayed home or crossed over to what WAS their 2nd choice Bernie Sanders when controversy about his stance on abortion and silly Twitter antics was blasted all over the media (largely out of context in a unfair manner). Yes, you could say earnest and well meaning, yet gullible. In a general election vs. Hillary I suspect he would do much better than the primary here, he'd have a chance. Vs. Sanders he wouldn't get enough of the crossover vote to win WI I suspect.

    I nearly voted Sanders myself due to doubts about Trump's tax plan (his weak point thus far) but didn't like Sanders plan much better (would likely cause the rich to flee the country) so I voted Trump based on his likely hood to keep the country safe and bring back jobs. Without those key points the rest is moot.

  32. "1991 was of course the last year where genuine classic must own rock albums got made."

    It all comes down to preference, but there have been plenty of timeless classics produced since 1991. I'm sure you will disagree here, but Radiohead's OK Computer from 1996 comes to mind.

    "I can't wait 'til turning on a modern rock/pop station becomes a non-chore again."

    Radio was a chore to listen to in 1991, too. Mainstream radio has always sucked. Even the album formatted FM stations of the 70s had much lower ratings than the shitty ones. And really, who listens to radio these days? No need.

  33. There's a decent amount of alright songs made from 1992-1995. Most stuff after '96 really blows. After '95 I only can really tolerate some of the pop punk of the time. At least it has some energy and spirit. The "modern" rock of the late 90's is as defanged, minimalist, and slow to rile as you can get. A sedative.

    Pop was getting pretty lame by 1991. But in the 1st half of the 80's, MTV and even mainstream pop radio kicked ass. The complexity of pop hits reached a peak in 1983 (another spike was '76). The late 70's-mid 80's were a fantastic time for pop, rock, and disco/R&B. Many artists wrote their own songs, solos were everywhere, vocals had a wide range. Complex tribal syncopation was used a lot. Lots of catchy and sometimes complex melodies too.

  34. The 70s was the best decade for Western popular music in the 20th century, no question. So much variety and the bar was WAY high. Major innovations occurred almost every year.

    To my ear, pop punk is completely terrible. I HATED the whiny Blink 182/Green Day period. Hated it. Thankfully there was a lot of great underground stuff going on throughout the 90s. And some really good stuff in the electronic genre up to today. And hell, alt-country has produced a ton of really good and lasting music. The peak of the 70s won't be reached any time soon, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of great music out there.

