← all Middle 8 videos
9:45 · 1,756 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- The chart case is overwhelming: the only act with four separate singles spending at least a year on the Hot 100, the record for most total weeks on that chart, and more Billboard rock number ones than anyone before them.
▶ 00:00:32
- The split between that and the reception is the subject. Their albums have been consistently panned while they fill arenas, which the video treats as a fact about charts rather than about quality.
▶ 00:00:50
- They sounded nothing like this at the start, with a first EP closer to musical theatre, before lineup changes and a move to Las Vegas.
▶ 00:01:33
- Their breakthrough track is the most electronic thing on that record, a blend of dubstep, hip hop and rock, which is precisely why it reached everyone.
▶ 00:01:51
- The second-longest-running song on that same chart is also an electronic rock song, which is the video's tell about where the format went.
▶ 00:02:07
- Their second album sold twice as many first-week copies as the debut but its singles underperformed, which the video links to its more rock-leaning sound.
▶ 00:02:26
- The third record moved further into electronics and the singles returned to the top 20, and rock radio accepted it.
▶ 00:03:07
- The history section makes the point that rock has been redefined and subdivided continuously since the 1950s, and that each new form was rejected by the generation before it.
▶ 00:03:59
- The structural cause was commercial: CD sales collapsed, digital sales put the emphasis on singles, and rock radio stations converted to top 40 because that brought listeners and advertisers.
▶ 00:05:51
- In 2017 R&B and hip hop passed rock as the biggest genre in the United States for the first time, after which the only rock reaching the charts was the kind that had dissolved the borders with pop and hip hop.
▶ 00:06:27