PUBLIC LISTENING: HOT TOPIC

THE STATE OF MALL PUNK IN THE HEARTLAND

Hot Topic is a brooding oasis in the middle of the shopping mall, a place where the skin forms on top of the American countercultural pudding. Or at least it used to be. From nü-metal to pop screamo, from phat pants to skinny jeans, some of the most important movements of the past 25 years of big-tent alternative culture have lived out their commercial peak on the racks at the store. I’m not sure what’s going on there now. I could’ve checked out a Hot Topic in the New York area, but I wanted to go deeper into the heartland. I visited a Hot Topic at a mall in Bloomington, Indiana, which is likely indistinguishable from any other Hot Topic in the country. It’s the newest edition of Public Listening, presented by John’s Music Blog. 

1:20: Sabrina Carpenter “Please Please Please”

The first thing I noticed was just how many anime-related shirts were on the wall. Then the music hit me. I’m not sure what the equivalent of “Please Please Please” would’ve been 25 years ago or 15 years ago. Whatever the answer, it wouldn’t have been playing at Hot Topic. The poptimists won. But at what cost?

1:23: Jimmy Eat World “Pain”

Now we are closer to the strike zone: It's the first single from the Jimmy Eat World album that came after Bleed American. I made my way to the back of the store. I was moving through the clearance rack. There was a Kim Petras shirt, a Dua Lipa shirt, a shirt from the Myspace-era power pop band Boys Like Girls, and a shirt from the band Neon Trees that referenced the London Calling cover art, which is a reference to an early Elvis record. There was a shirt that simply said Genre: Sadboy, but I sadly couldn’t find a single piece of Lil Peep merchandise. There is a different timeline where Lil Peep is the deserved king of Hot Topic. It’s not hard to imagine.

1:26: Kim Petras “I Don't Want It At All”

Even as its countercultural meaning erodes, Hot Topic maintains a certain ambience. The moody atmosphere of the store—for the uninitiated, it’s kind of like a gothic Hallmark Gift Shop—has remained in-tact, but it is filled with a confusing hodgepodge of stock that doesn’t seem to point to a singular zeitgeist. The music-related shirts on the wall were a pastiche of every era of Hot Topic that I have known: Korn next to My Chemical Romance; Pierce The Veil next to The Deftones. There were a lot of Deftones shirts. Is that a Zoomer shoegaze heat check? I could not find any My Bloody Valentine apparel... Kim Petras might be in the clearance rack, but she’s still getting played over the speakers. 

1:30: Jeremy Zucker (Feat. ft. blackbear) “talk is overrated” 

For a period, Hot Topic had a vinyl section. They do not anymore—at least in Indiana. It seems like a certain kind of fandom is now central to Hot Topic: anime, Funko Pops, comic books, and video games. In my horrible memory, these corners of culture used to serve a lesser role within the Hot Topic ecosystem, but it’s unclear whether or not that’s actually the case. My vision of Hot Topic is blurred by Warped Tour footage on modestly-sized television screens. I do think that, generally speaking, contemporary youth culture is now driven more by IP worship than subcultural allegiance. That last sentence is a little too loaded. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Hot Topic has both tight and baggy pants for sale. It’s almost as if the pants aren’t even the point anymore.

1:33: Alice In Chains “Man in the Box”

Social Collision is one of Hot Topic’s in-house brands. The tagline: “A little bit emo, a whole lot of style.” There is something timeless about this gear. It’s like a synthesis of multiple eras of Hot Topic. One shirt had a safety-pinned heart in the middle with the text “You Give Me The Ick.” Another shirt said “punk angel.” Aesthetically, the clothing could’ve been sold at any point over the past 30 years. Alice In Chains is not a band that I associate with Hot Topic, but I am too young to have witnessed the store’s grunge era. Hot Topic started in 1989, but didn’t go public until 1996. Would any Gen X readers of the blog care to chime in about the state of Hot Topic before nü-metal? 

1:38: Rainbow Kitten Surprise “Superstar”

A shopper was wearing a shirt from a band called Sleep Token, who also had a hoodie for sale. The design featured a constellation of faux-punk-style patches. I'm going to guess there is a lot of "lore" around Sleep Token. They all wear bloody masks, like characters from a post-Saw horror franchise. Anyway... For my own sanity, I have to ignore the fact that there is a band formed after 2005 that chose to take the name “Rainbow Kitten Surprise.” That is stolen rainbow rock valor.

1:41: Sum 41 “Underclass Hero”

“Underclass Hero” came out in 2007, but I didn’t hear it back then. I was too busy flying around America on budget airline carriers, playing depressing blog house parties. “Underclass Hero” is a blatant rip of “Fat Lip,” the best Sum 41 song. I would argue that “Fat Lip” is one of the best pop punk and rap rock songs of all time. I’ve always wondered why a band never used “Fat Lip” as a model for their entire sound. Occasionally, when I am in a space like this, a charged space, I will momentarily go blank with terror.

1:44: ENHYPEN (エンハイフン) “Given-Taken [Japanese Ver.]”

Some things are eternal. I’m talking about a Nirvana-branded guitar pick necklace. Close to a Pierce The Veil-branded rubber wristband was a Winnie the Pooh-branded enamel pin set. There was only one Brat shirt but four Olivia Rodrigio shirts. There was a Knocked Loose shirt but not a Turnstile shirt. Enhypen is a South Korean boy band.

1:47: Twenty One Pilots “Snap Back”

The argument could be made that Twenty One Pilots were early on what I guess I will call the “breakbeat pop” wave, so early in fact that their music long felt illegible to anyone outside of the Warped Tour axis. Any interesting music the band has made has been cut with a sort of YA-style world building, centered around deeply convoluted conceptual parameters, ones that often seem to circle back, in one way or another, to the singer’s relationship with Christianity. As I thought about this, I stared at a pair of Smashing Pumpkins-branded pajamas.

1:50: Escape The Fate “Remember Every Scar”

“Remember Every Scar” sounds like music that would be played during a highlight reel for a minor league hockey team. Escape The Fate only has one original member left in the band; their first vocalist, Ronnie Radke, now the singer of Falling In Reverse, was fired in 2006 after being sentenced to prison. I walked out into the barren and spacious mall. Less than 24 hours later, I would be back in New York City.