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The Rise and Fall of the ‘Hipster Music’ Era, 2000-2014: VICE’s Definitive Timeline

An epic odyssey through the early 2000s, from (what they now call) Indie Sleaze: Part I to Future Islands on Letterman, with (nearly) no Mumford & Sons in sight.

By Kevin Lee Kharas, Adam Christopher Smith, and Emma Garland

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In recent days, our timelines have broken out into a huge, sprawling fight about when the “hipster era” really was, who hipsters really were, and—by extension—what music they were actually listening to. It felt like an argument that was made for us to step into and settle. 

So, here it is: the definitive timeline of what hipsters were soundtracking their lives with between 2000 and 2014 (even if they’ll now tell you otherwise), beginning at the dawn of electroclash and terminating in Future Islands’ performance of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” on Letterman in the summer of that final year, which always felt like an elegy to something more than one funny little man’s on-off love affair. With 12 years’ hindsight, the footage now registers as a farewell to an entire era of hipster irony that in Samuel T. Herring found both its ultimate expression and final boss: a dancing American dressed all in black, grappling with sincerity and frightening people with his feelings while some synths buzz in the background.

As we said, this week has seen multiple sides engaging in a form of ideological warfare over who and what “hipsters” really were. At some point in the late 00s, for reasons we’ll attempt to pin down later, there was a bifurcation in the hipster chronology that resulted in a “dark timeline” running in parallel to its primary stream. Populating what we might call the “Stomp Clap Hey” timeline, these dismal abstractions—kitted out in glassless glasses, silly scarves, waxed ‘taches, and toques—displayed no real interest in progressive music or fashion (or, come to think of it, fun) and as such weren’t really “hipsters” at all, but retrograde copyists engaged in a twee and stoic reenactment of the hipsterisms they’d seen in ads and social media posts (perhaps on an iPhone, millions of which had been tossed into the world like unpinned grenades in 2007). By 2008, “hipsters” in places like New York City, LA, London, and Paris were utterly different from what a “hipster” was anywhere outside of the major cities. We’ll explore this argument in an accompanying article to follow; for now, the crux is really this: While the hipster timeline is elastic and forgiving, no church is so broad that it can possibly welcome both FannyPack and Mumford & Sons into its flock.

An important disclaimer: These bands and their music aren’t necessarily things that we ever thought were (or should be considered) “hip,” they simply make up a chronology of what was widely accepted as such by the zeitgeist. We have tried to make sense of shifts in styles and tastes by injecting the timeline with key events in TV, cinema, tech, fashion, and the economy, though really, as with any attempt to make sense of the world as it was a quarter of a century ago, this is a doomed act of hazy guesswork. However, as figments of the past emerge through the mist, there are certain things that even with the passage of time seem undeniable: the first 14 years of the century was a boomtime for silly new microgenres, the relationship between music and synthetic drug consumption is perhaps underplayed in this era, and—for a fleeting moment at least—Animal Collective really did feel like the biggest band on Earth. 

Oh: and 2009 was definitely, inarguably, when the hipster era peaked.

vice’s ‘HIPSTER MUSIC’ TIMELINE:2000—2014

vice’s ‘HIPSTER MUSIC’ TIMELINE:2000—2014

––––––THE WORLD GIVES UP ON BRITPOP

––––––PITCHFORK, NEWLY RELOCATED TO CHICAGO FROM MINNEAPOLIS, AWARDS RADIOHEAD’S CONTROVERSIALLY GUITAR-FREE ELECTRONICA ALBUM KID A 10.0 (“I HAD NEVER SEEN A SHOOTING STAR BEFORE”)

––––––UNION POOL OPENS IN WILLIAMSBURG

––––––TEENS WORLDWIDE DESTROY THEIR FAMILY DESKTOP COMPUTERS DOWNLOADING VIRUS-RIDDLED MP3s FROM NAPSTER, LIMEWIRE, AND KAZAA

––––––ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES FESTIVAL (ATP) TAKES OVER A HOLIDAY CAMP IN THE UK FOR ITS FIRST WEEKEND-LONG EVENT (THE CONCEPT: GET WASTED WITH YOUR BEST FRIENDS IN A CHALET THEN GO SEE SOME OF THE BEST BANDS OF ALL TIME). MOGWAI CURATES THE LINEUP, WHICH FEATURES SONIC YOUTH, APHEX TWIN, AND SOMETHING CALLED “BOBBY GILLESPIE’S HAIR”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Peaches, Chicks On Speed, Le Tigre, Fischerspooner, Melt-Banana, Cat Power, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Bright Eyes, Radiohead, Mogwai, Merzbow, Modest Mouse, Felix Da Housecat, GAS, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of DeadDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: ElectroclashSong That Was Huge: Peaches, “Fuck the Pain Away”Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Life Without Buildings, “The Leanover”

––––––DFA RECORDS FOUNDED IN NEW YORK CITY

––––––THE STROKES APPEAR ON THE COVER OF NME, RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM

––––––GRAFFITI ARTIST DASH SNOW STARTS TO GLAMORIZE 2000s DOWNTOWN NYC, TAKING POLAROIDS OF HIS FRIENDS AND THEIR GENITALIA

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Erol Alkan, Moldy Peaches, Broken Social Scene, The Shins, The Parkinsons, Har Mar Superstar, Destroyer, Ikara Colt, The Icarus Line, A.R.E. Weapons, The Strokes, Roots Manuva, Microphones, Liars, Neutral Milk Hotel (still)Dubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: The Scene With No NameSong That Was Huge: Fischerspooner, “Emerge” Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Golden Boy & Miss Kittin, “Rippin Kittin”

––––––“LOSING MY EDGE” BY LCD SOUNDSYSTEM “HARD LAUNCHES” HIPSTER ERA

––––––IN THE UK, GONZO LAUNCHES........

© Vice