But everybody else likes them

Carrie Brownstein, a former rocker (of Sleater-Kinney) and current writer and NPR contributor, writes that Radiohead just leaves her cold. Surprisingly, all the commenters seem to agree. A few years ago, Radiohead was untouchable in hipster discourse. What happened?

Well, it could have been the fact that they tricked people into paying for an online album release that turned out to be ultra-compressed versions of the real songs, and then charged huge shitpiles of money for the real thing.

Or it could be something else. In economics, a "coordination game" happens when a bunch of people try to base their actions on what they think everyone else is going to do. What typically ends up happening is big sudden movements by the entire population. When I was in college, I felt like this kind of phenomenon was going on with Radiohead; plenty of people thought they were the Next Big Thing, and that listening to them was a prerequisite of belonging to the hip, thoughtful, fashionable, soulful-but-slightly-neurotic young person crowd. Everyone rushed to their concerts, but surprisingly few people cranked up the Radiohead in their dorm rooms.

Well, maybe the game is finally up. Radiohead's screwing of its fans with the online money-grab stunt may have been the "signal" that caused some hipster tastemakers (and Matt Yglesias) to come out of the closet and declare tat - gasp! - they don't like Radiohead that much. And then everyone else suddenly thought about it and decided that they don't either. Game theory in action.

As a bonus , Carrie Brownstein's column finally made me go discover Sleater-Kinney, which turns out to have been a really rockin' band. Why did I never listen to them before? Maybe because all the girls I knew in college who liked them were dating guys who wouldn't shut up about how great Radiohead was...