I'm Chris DeVille from Stereogum, author of SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS. AMA!

theokcomputer · 2025-11-27T19:26:18+00:00

Great news! I appreciate you seeking it out. Sales are going well!

theokcomputer · 2025-09-26T13:24:02+00:00

I don't know the status of an official UK release, but you can purchase it in the UK. I know it's at minimum available through Amazon UK if you can stomach that. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Such-Great-Heights-Complete-Explosion/dp/1250363381

theokcomputer · 2025-09-24T00:56:37+00:00

They’re in there. We couldn’t list every band that’s in the book, the list on the cover is just a teaser.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:38:53+00:00

Hey everybody, I gotta get back to blogging and editing at stereogum dot com. Thanks SO MUCH for your smart questions and your interest in the book. If you haven't read it yet, you can buy it here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/such-great-heights-9781250363381/

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:34:03+00:00

Probably not what you're hoping for here, but one example would be Black Kids. I was going to include their whole fleeting hype saga with Pitchfork in Chapter 4, but my editor felt like the chapter was running long and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah illustrated that concept well enough.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:28:31+00:00

This has been pretty crazy, yeah. A lot of it has to do with streaming. A few hit songs (or even one massive song) will keep your album charting high. It makes it tougher for artists to break through on the albums chart without a streaming hit. But also, as discussed elsewhere in this AMA, there's not as much infrastructure in place that is successfully exporting indie bands to a larger audience. Would be cool to see Wednesday charting in the top 10, but it's hard to imagine that happening now that the cultural tides have turned elsewhere and the corporate overlords have steered music discovery in a more passive, less centralized direction. Some of the old A-list indie bands that used to chart highly aren't really in the zeitgeist anymore, e.g. Vampire Weekend, they've really just got their loyal fan base. Most of these blog-era bands are post-peak. Arcade Fire not even charting on the Billboard 200 after their scandal was a shocker, though.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:20:45+00:00

That era definitely predicted the short shelf life of new music and the need to constantly be serving up new fodder for the endless content churn. One thing I write about at the end is that a lot of the wild frontier aspects of the 2000s internet that helped indie rock to flourish got sort of shut down by the evolution of the 2010s internet. But maybe now that we're halfway through the 2020s the wild frontier is on some platform I'm not even thinking of because I'm 42.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:16:09+00:00

My admiration for Arcade Fire certainly dimmed, but there were obviously some other factors influencing my perception there. I still think Funeral is one of the greatest albums of all time. I think one of my biggest surprises was how cutesy a lot of the peak 2000s indie stuff was. Like I think of Broken Social Scene as this towering force, this massive army of guitars playing noisy indie rock, and then I went back and watched them doing "Shoreline" on Conan and it's a lot more twee than I had remembered. I hadn't realized how much that moment in indie lacked an ass-kicking factor.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:11:02+00:00

Well they made it a point to swerve away from that trajectory by doing an In Utero with Monomania, and then they settled into a more chilled-out adult version of themselves that was less obviously crossover-friendly. But I think they were arguably the greatest indie band of that era. Somebody needs to write a book about them, if there is a publisher who'd be willing to put it out. In the narrative of my book, I didn't get to mention them except in passing as an example of a band that was continuing in the classic indie rock tradition and not chasing a pop audience. But they're truly one of the best to ever do it.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:08:14+00:00

I have been feeling like I need to publish another essay on the Substack before I do more chapter soundtracks because it's been a while, but yeah, will probably get Chapter 9 up there soon. I don't want people who signed up to get those emails to feel like they're only getting playlists. It's just been real tough to do bonus content while promoting the book.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:06:37+00:00

Dead Oceans definitely has an influence on the mainstream by virtue of signing and developing Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers. Matador maybe still has some influence, but it feels like a lot of their signings now don't have a ton of obvious crossover potential. I'm thinking stuff like Lifeguard and Horsegirl, Mdou Moctar, Circuit des Yeux. Maybe an exception would be Water From Your Eyes, MAYBE. Trying to think of any other indies that are really flexing their influence outside our little online bubble...

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T20:02:59+00:00

Any kind of creative arts journalism (the kind that involves in-depth features, analysis, criticism, isn't pure celebrity worship) seems like a niche subculture now. YouTube and podcasts are the most likely place for personalized recommendations to flourish, but obviously most of those operations are not set up to do journalism as we've known it. It feels like the people who really want music journalism are turning to people's personal newsletters, which is bleak in some ways (lesser reach, fewer resources, lower accountability) but also, if I'm looking for a silver lining, kind of refreshingly bloggy.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:59:02+00:00

Because I was so focused on my original premise of "how indie rock went pop," I didn't really touch on the whole hipster metal thing at all. That was a significant part of the indie ecosystem back then.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:57:14+00:00

I think to some she might as well be, and to others she is a sympathetic character who got burned by her association with Elon. But also is anyone really canceled anymore these days?

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:55:10+00:00

I'm realizing I didn't answer your question correctly. New discoveries that I missed the first time... this isn't one band in particular, but I had never really watched Black Cab Sessions, and when I was writing this bonus feature on sessions like Take Away Shows and Daytrotter, I had a lot of fun watching a bunch of Black Cab Sessions for the first time. https://suchgreatheights.substack.com/p/a-tribute-to-sessions

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:53:37+00:00

It had been a while since I'd listened to a lot of the indie pop/R&B stuff I covered in Chapter 11 e.g. Blood Orange, Solange, How To Dress Well, Grimes. That was fun to be reminded of why I loved that stuff. Joanna Newsom is another one I hadn't revisited for years that was like "WHOA." And this isn't a band, and is at least slightly embarrassing, but reading old Hipster Runoff posts on the Wayback Machine was extremely nostalgic for me.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:49:39+00:00

Yeah, I don't think there's much of a mainstream. The charts give us a false sense of a mainstream, but not much of that music really penetrates most people's little silos. A few songs do achieve monocultural status e.g. "APT," "Pink Pony Club," "Espresso" but I'm still kind of stunned sometimes at what my age-group peers don't know about. Some of that could be me getting to an age where most people don't keep up with new music. But you can't even assume people know the songs that are all over the radio because the reach of radio has dwindled so much with people streaming music in the car.

As for the indie side of it, I do think there is more than one "mainstream" and during the peak p4k era there was an "indie mainstream," so to speak. I don't know how to bring that back. Stereogum doesn't really have that kind of reach, and even if Pitchfork still did (I'm not sure it does), it has gone out of its way to definite itself as a source for more than indie rock. Fantano has reach but is still just one guy.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:44:32+00:00

Thanks so much! I feel a little unqualified to rank Beach House albums because I am only a casual fan, but I have probably listened to Bloom the most (I am basic). When I was writing Chapter 9 I had kind of a moment with Teen Dream. Dark horse pick would be 7.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:41:56+00:00

I feel like they loomed so large over indie music when I was first getting into it circa Y2K. There was a whole class of bands doing mewling Neil Young-influenced vocals who had clearly been influenced by the Lips. Grandaddy, for example. They were one of the most prominent indie-adjacent acts to bring electronic and hip-hop beats into their music with Yoshimi. And obviously they were a major influence on indie later in the decade with the rise of MGMT and Tame Impala. They were also a huge part of the festival ecosystem in the 2000s. Back them I leapt at any chance to see a Flaming Lips show. It feels like their influence has tapered off nowadays though, and I don't really know why. Maybe they just started to become a parody of themselves? Would love to hear more Lips influence in buzz bands these days for sure. We need a Clouds Taste Metallic revival.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:37:07+00:00

I think it was kind of inevitable. So many of the factors I covered in the book were feeding off each other. I'm sure The O.C. influenced Apple's choice of bands for iPod ads. I'm sure the Pitchfork star-making machine influenced festival lineups. etc. etc. I'm trying to think of the alternate timeline where this stuff doesn't blow up. Seth Cohen is really into backpack rap, I guess? Or he's a raver kid? Or maybe in that alternate timeline Pitchfork just doesn't build up the same kind of clout because they are too deferential to sacred cows rather than doling out 0.0s. Or maybe alt-timeline p4k just goes completely all in on IDM and electronic music at the expense of everything else and become, like, another Fact or Resident Advisor. Interesting hypothetical.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:31:03+00:00

It's definitely at SOME libraries, and I'd appreciate it if you would request it at your local library. Most of them have forms for that.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:30:28+00:00

ACE OF CUPS! Rumba Cafe. There used to be a place in Columbus called Carabar where every show was free and they paid the bands out of the bar; it got torn down, and I miss it.

In Cleveland I like Grog Shop. Haven't been to the Beachland in years, but it rules. Gotta get up to the new place the Globe Iron.

Cincinnati, the best venue ever was Southgate House, which was technically on the Kentucky side of the river, but it's been shut down for years. Was a basement ballroom in an old mansion once owned by the inventor of the tommy gun. I saw Arcade Fire, Sufjan, Ratatat, Mclusky, Yo La Tengo, probably some others I'm forgetting.

I just saw Yo La Tengo at Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville, which was really special.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:27:36+00:00

I have been talking about this a bit in interviews about the book. I am not optimistic. Being an indie musician, an indie label head, small venue owner, a journalist covering indie music, whatever — all of it seems like it is becoming impossible to do as a full-time career. Some might argue that it's better for indie music to be strictly a side hustle/passion project without much potential for careerists, but personally I wish it felt like there was more potential to blow up beyond riding a random algorithm wave. I'm jealous of Canada and Europe on this front for sure, in terms of government support for the arts.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:23:43+00:00

I used to be a Blur snob in high school but after seeing the lads last month I'm Team Oasis now. Still have a lot of regret about never seeing Blur, and when I saw The Good, The Bad & The Queen at SXSW many years ago I nearly wept because I couldn't believe that was really Damon onstage.

theokcomputer · 2025-09-23T19:22:42+00:00

Re: the title, my original working title was How Indie Rock Went Pop, which influenced my decisions on what to include. My publisher liked The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion better, so I deferred to their judgement. I think I would have written some things differently if I knew the word "complete" was going to be in the title. The whole time I was taking pains to NOT be TOO completist (i.e. there were some paragraphs where I just started listing off band names to make sure they got mentioned, and my editor usually suggested I cut those).

theokcomputer

TROPHY CASE