Rise Up, Generation X!
Our time, finally, is at hand
At dinner before the show, Mr. O’Rourke said, he and Mr. Walz discussed an upcoming remastered version of the Replacements’ 1985 album that is named, of all things, “Tim.”
When the new “Tim” came out, Mr. O’Rourke mailed it to Mr. Walz — on vinyl, of course. Mr. Walz replied with an appreciative text.
Bob Mould, the former Hüsker Dü frontman, said Tuesday that he had only just learned from Mr. O’Rourke’s post on social media that Mr. Walz knew his band’s music. “I’m pretty speechless,” he said. “I was doing a happy dance.”
Michael Azerrad, whose 2001 history of indie rock “Our Band Could Be Your Life” has chapters on both the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, said in an interview that Mr. Walz’s appreciation for such bands signaled a changing of the generational guard, as Mr. Walz, like Ms. Harris, was born in 1964, at the dawn of Generation X.
“It makes sense,” Azerrad said, “that our post-Boomer politicians would be into indie rock.”
NYTimes: Tim Walz: Governor, Vice-Presidential Candidate, Local Music Fan
This, apparently, is it. The boomers have been defenestrated, and the time of the dadpunks is upon us.
By the time we’re done, Our Band Could Be Your Life will have replaced the Gideon Bible. The national anthem will be Radiohead’s The National Anthem. Krist Novoselic will be Secretary of the Interior, Chuck Klosterman the poet laureate. Winona Ryder will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom or Whatever. Which from now on will be called that.
This is the closest we have ever been to enthusiasm. Phone the neighbors, wake the kids. Canvas! Donate! Hang the flag right side up, next to an obnoxious yard sign!
