Peter Bjorn and John — "Young Folks"
60 Songs That Explain the '90s
This episode of '60 Songs That Explain the '90s' explores the cultural impact of Peter Bjorn and John's 2006 hit 'Young Folks,' examining its role in
Key takeaways
- 'Young Folks' became an accidental anthem that symbolized the mainstreaming of indie rock in the mid-2000s.
Main topics
- Indie rock's commercialization in the 2000s
- The cultural impact of 'Young Folks'
Notable quotes
'Indie rock peaked on July 4th, 2010… when Beach Fossils bassist John Pena physically threw his bass guitar into the East River.'
Conclusion
Peter Bjorn and John's 'Young Folks' stands as more than a hit—it's a cu
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:07) Hello, friends. A quick note to say that 60 Songs is now available on YouTube. We made it. Success. That was easy. You can now watch full episodes of this show on YouTube, and you can also check out our new social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok, all using the name 60 Songs that explain the 90s. We have heard your cries of despair and confusion, and we have therefore embraced... various popular online platforms. So watch us on YouTube. Check us out on TikTok and Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter still under the name Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-L-A, but maybe stay out of it. I don't know. We'll put all the links for these in the episode description as well. Thanks for listening and or watching, and we'll see Speaker 3 (0:54) you on the internet. Speaker 1 (0:58) Hello friends, a quick announcement. We are doing a mailbag episode in which we solicit listener questions, comments, and gripes, and then I answer those questions, comments, and gripes. Let's try and stick to questions as opposed to comments or certainly gripes. Please email your questions to 60songspod at spotify.com. That is 60songspod. at Spotify.com. Please submit your questions by Monday, September 21st, 2026. And please be nice. Thank you very much. Speaker 3 (1:38) This episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s is presented to you by Nintendo. Some things stick around for a reason. A great song, a favorite movie, a game everyone wants another turn at. The Nintendo Switch 2 system fits right into that tradition. With two controllers included in games like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bonanza, and EA Sports FC 26, there's something for every age and every mood. Whether you're at home or on the go, it's easy to keep the good stuff in rotation. Learn more at Nintendo.com slash Nintendo Switch 2. Games and systems sold separately. Games rated E to Speaker 1 (2:20) E10+. Okay, quick question for you. What is the single greatest moment in indie rock history? When exactly did indie rock peak as a musical style, as a cultural force, as an ethos? What is indie rock's apex mountain? Did indie rock peak on August 30th, 2009, when Jay-Z and Beyonce watched a Grizzly Bear concert on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn and 800,000 people blogged about it? Did indie rock peak on February 13th? 2011, when The Suburbs by Arcade Fire quite unexpectedly won the Grammy for Album of the Year, beating out Eminem, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum, and Katy Perry. Katy Perry probably should have won. Did indie rock peak way earlier? In the 2004 feature film Garden State, when Natalie Portman put her headphones on Zach Braff's head and told him that the shins would change his life, and then she fell in love with him, and he directed it. Those are all great guesses, but I'm sorry, those are all incorrect. No, Indie Rock peaked on July 4th, 2010. during a live performance by the Brooklyn band Beach Fossils, when Beach Fossils bassist John Pena physically threw his bass guitar into the East River. Speaker 1 (4:01) Holy shit. If you're not watching this, don't worry. I'll walk you through it. All right. Here we have most likely iPhone video of the young Brooklyn indie rock band Beach Fossils performing on Water Taxi Beach in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City. All four dudes in Beach Fossils are wearing shorts. Bassist John Pena is barefoot. And the drummer is playing while standing up, which conveys authenticity. We got no stage. We got a chain link fence behind the band with a pink banner for a cool local clothing company. And beyond that fence, we got the roiling murky splendor of the East River, which is a lovely body of water. So long as you don't ever go in there or look at it too hard. There are too many indie rock bands with beach in the name, but I'll allow it this time because beach fossils sound like a band called Beach Fossils. Pleasantly archaic. breezy but with an alluring hint of decay, deceptively placid, and therefore prone to sudden tumultuous rages. For example, the band set at Water Taxi Beach here on the 4th of July 2010 will be ending semi-violently in roughly 30 seconds. Speaker 1 (5:27) Uh-oh, we're getting rowdy. Beach Fossil's frontman, Dustin Pazer, he's the wailing gentleman there. Dustin has just now divested himself of his electric guitar. He unplugs his guitar, he knocks over his amp, he drags his guitar on the ground behind him as he sings. And impressively, none of this rowdiness appears to affect the music itself in the slightest. Meanwhile... Another important element of this video is that the only real visible audience member is a child. I don't mean that ugly. I'm guessing there's plenty of people in the crowd here. But the person filming this is in the second row, basically standing directly behind a little girl, seven or eight years old, maybe and the girl standing like six feet away from the band. And she's wearing giant hearing protection headphones. Like the kind of headphones conscientious parents buy their children so they can safely enjoy medium rowdy indie rock concerts. This kid keeps stealing worried glances at a mostly off-camera adult standing next to her who might be her mother and might be a total stranger. But nonetheless, this girl is a little closer to the rowdiness than I personally am comfortable with. And she doesn't seem too psyched about it either. All right, fellas, time to make the donuts. Time to make indie rock. history. Speaker 1 (7:06) Okay, what do we got happening here exactly? Let's see. The lead singer's really wailing now, and he kicks over a mic stand, and he kicks over the drums, and he's crashing into the bassist a little bit. And oh, look, there's a second shirtless guitar player who's been playing guitar while staring at the ground this whole time, and who's so far away from his bandmates, I hadn't even noticed him before. And the song ends in an abrupt discordant burst of moderate societal dissatisfaction. That's all pretty normal, conventional, medium rowdy rock and roll stuff. That's cool. And also, whoa, Nelly, that guy just chucked his bass into the East River. Holy crap. Beast Fossils bassist John Pena unplugs his bass and he shrugs it off and he winds up and he goes whoop and he just launches it. over the fence, and into the fucking river. Let me say this clearly, spectacular throw. We got just a phenomenal bass toss here. Remember when Nirvana played Lithium at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1992, and right at the end of the song, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic goes whoop, and he threw his bass straight up, and then he tried to catch it. and he clonked himself in the head and fell over? There's no reason not to play this for you, I suppose. What did I buy all this video shit for if not to play this for you? Speaker 1 (8:49) I love that once again, none of this rowdiness appears to affect the music itself in the slightest. Chris Novoselic tries to catch the bass, you see. There's your trouble. That ain't gonna happen. That is not a catchable object. It's not the bass toss that gets you. It's the bass catch. If you were athletic enough to catch a flying bass in midair, you never would have gotten into rock and roll in the first place. Anyway, that's the best bass toss in rock history, in my humble opinion, given the profound historical significance of Nirvana and the VMAs and whatnot. But also, it's the sheer awe-inspiring verticality of the Nirvana bass toss itself. A plus throw, D minus. Catch. Okay, so the beach fossils guy. This is the horizontal version of that base toss. Beach fossils on the East River. This is a line drive. This is a frozen rope. We have caught some serious air. This thing's got a lengthy upward trajectory. This dude's base is clear for takeoff. This thing is still in midair now. You don't necessarily go to indie rock shows to see world historical feats of strength, but that is a silver medal javelin throw. Kudos. Let's watch it again, or you can just listen now to the crowd react. The mixture of gasps, whoops, and nervous laughter. The little girl with the headphones, she has no visible reaction to the bass toss, but the adult standing next to the kid, possibly but possibly not the kid's mother, this lady clamps both hands over her mouth in the universal posture of, oh, shit. Meanwhile, unlike my 600th time watching this video, I just noticed that after the bass toss, a photographer... with a non-iPhone camera immediately walks over to the fence and looks down and tries to take a photo of the bass sinking into the river. Great instincts. All of these people are clearly aware that they've just witnessed rock and roll history. They've also kinda sorta probably witnessed a crime. Speaker 1 (11:18) I am not aware of any additional video footage of the Great Beach Fossils East River bass toss. Other than in this video, you can also clearly see a mostly off-screen second person filming all of this on their phone. Because by the late 2000s, we all spent much of our time at rock concerts shooting phone video of other people shooting phone videos. And that's too bad. I would love a dedicated home run camera that just follows the glorious arc. of the base itself in its breathtaking romantic path upward toward the sky and then downward toward the sea. The river. Toward the river. The East River. Not the most romantic river. No offense. So the base toss video gets posted on Brooklyn Vegan and goes semi-viral. Brooklyn Vegan, the great, long-standing, super-respected indie rock blog. with show listings and rad photography and disconcertingly bitchy commenters and whatnot. And here in 2010, I am working for the Village Voice at the time, the even longer standing, increasingly disrespected New York City Alt Weekly. And I make the very 2010 indie rock media decision to blog about their blog by simply listing my favorite Brooklyn vegan comments about the beach fossils. This is how music journalism worked at the time. And so look out. Top six Brooklyn vegan comments about the Beach Fossils bass toss. Here we go. Number six. Five years from now, Mutant Fish release Chillwave album. Speaker 1 (13:02) Number five, whoa, bra, hardcore, nice shorts, LOL. I told you about the shorts. Number four, most interesting thing they've done. That's not very nice. Number three, nice hooks and appealing harmonic interplay. That's nicer. Number two, I am also frustrated. with the sound of this band. That's not nice, but that's pretty good. Super dry sarcasm is the reliable default mode of most indie rock blog discourse. And finally, number one, the best Brooklyn vegan comment about the Beach Fossils bass toss. How can you afford your rock and roll lifestyle? Aw, come on, tell me. That's the winner. Any cake reference automatically wins any competition as far as I'm concerned. Speaker 4 (14:04) Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinking what they're selling. Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them. From Speaker 1 (14:16) their 1994 debut album, Motorcade of Generosity, that was the all-time great Sacramento rock band Cake. with their modest alternative radio hit Rock and Roll Lifestyle. I weirdly vividly recall hearing this song for the very first time late at night on the radio as like a dimwit 16-year-old. This song was my introduction to Cake, one of my favorite bands, and also my introduction to the idea that relentless, shameless, soulless, capitalist consumption is poisoning classic rock or alternative rock or indie rock or whatever. Excess ain't rebellion. Even as a dimwit 16 year old, I knew enough to know that I maybe ought to remember and fully internalize the idea that excess ain't rebellion. I really want to do something right now, but I'm not positive that we're legally allowed to do it. And so I'd like to introduce a new game I just invented called Can We Do That? This is a game where I ask our friendly, hardworking lawyers and editors, I ask them offensively frivolous hypothetical questions, even though the vast majority of my coworkers have much better things to do. So today's question is, can we show slow motion footage of the beach fossils bass toss set to the Olympics music? Can we do that? No. Speaker 1 (15:55) The answer is no. They were polite about it, the lawyers, but nonetheless, we maybe ought to avoid the Olympics music in general and opt for Olympics-type music instead. That's disappointing. That's too bad. I'll get over it. But yeah, not all the Brooklyn Vegan commenters are psyched about the East River bass toss, which is okay. Technically, it's literally littering. Yeah, he threw a large object into the East River and he left it there. That's true. It's a question of scale, though, right? If you're standing next to a guy and he throws a McDonald's wrapper into the East River, you'd be like, well, that guy's an asshole. But if you're standing there and this dude throws his bass into the East River, you'd be like, well, that's the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life. Such is the transformative power of rock and roll. I'll tell you what really pissed me off, though. I missed it. I did not personally witness the East River bass toss. I had to watch it on the internet later, like everyone else, like a chump. No, I went and saw Beach Fossils Live three days earlier on July 1st, 2010. I was there. I saw this band at a tiny, long-gone Brooklyn club called Brewar Falls. which was indoors and had a Pac-Man arcade machine and was not within throwing distance of any famous bodies of water. To answer your question, yes, I blogged about it. And Beach Fossils bassist John Pena played barefoot at this show as well, despite it taking place indoors. And at some point, a heckler yelled, put on some shoes, dude, or you're going to get trichinosis. Someone actually yelled that at a rock concert, not me. Someone else. That's not even heckling. That's just good advice. Here's what beach fossils sound like in a more formal, non-base-toss context, by the way. Speaker 1 (18:05) From their self-titled 2010 debut album, that's Beach Fossils with a song called Daydream. And not a day goes by or an hour without times I can't remember what I'm thinking about because my head's caught up and tangled in those dreams. Yeah, that sounds relatable to me as a guy podcasting. about 16-year-old indie rock blog posts. So during that Beach Fossil show at Brewer Falls, the non-bass toss show, the band's last song ends with an abrupt discordant burst of moderate societal dissatisfaction, right? And Beach Fossil's bassist, John Pena, jumps into the drums and knocks them all over, just like Kurt Cobain used to do. And in my dumb little blog, I write, quote, Though a vaguely cathartic and rock and roll moment, the drummer does not look particularly pleased, understandably. Three adverbs in one sentence. And then I say, I'm glad I don't have to ride in the van back home with these guys. End quote. I might have seen the bass toss coming. Also, I'm ashamed to tell you that my blog about this show ends with the single meanest sentence I have ever written. in my 26-year rock journalism career. I can't believe this. This was a three-band bill at Brewer Falls. First, a band from Queens called The Beats, B-E-E-T-S, like the vegetable. Then Woven Bones, lots of bones back then in indie rock as well. And then Beach Fossils played last. And so I write a bunch of stuff, a bunch of adverbs. about beach fossils and woven bones. And then here is the last sentence of this blog. I gave this sentence its own paragraph. Quote, I tried to spend the beat's entire set playing Pac-Man, but I ran out of guys. End quote. That's fucking rude. Yo, that's unprofessional. What kind of way is that to behave? Apologize to the beats, Rob. Play a song by the beats to apologize to the beats. Rob. Speaker 1 (20:26) That's the Beats, B-E-E-T-S, with a song from 2011 called Doing Like I Do. Don't be afraid. You will not die. And if you die, whatever. That's also good advice. In the video for that song, they're at the beach, and a wave knocks over the giant, colorful, cut-out letters of the word whatever. Do you think that when the Beats named themselves the Beats that they were aware? There was already a band called The Beats, B-E-E-T-S, from that old animated kids TV show, Doug, the 90s Nickelodeon tween anxiety cartoon, Doug. Because I got to say, the Doug Beats have really screwed up the SEO for the Queens Beats. Speaker 1 (21:28) That's the Doug Beats with a song called Killer Tofu, which I've had stuck in my head for 30 minutes. I have personally gone to hundreds of concerts involving real life indie rock bands that look like the Doug Beats, the sunglasses on stage, the child's drawing hairstyles, the clashing outfits. And I'm standing in the crowd like, are these guys huge weirdos or are they just English? Yeah, a lot of shared DNA between the Doug Beats and the Queens Beats, I gotta say. A real simpatico vibe there, even visually. Primary colors, childish whimsy with a vague hint of melancholy, a clear preoccupation with death, etc. They should tour together or something, somehow. Anyway, I apologize to the Beats. The non-cartoon. But so, yeah, I personally missed it. But after his East River bass toss goes semi-viral, Beach Fossils bassist John Pena is treated to a late online roasting. People on the Internet make fun of his band or his shorts. Or they accuse him of having a trust fund to support his bass-tossing rock and roll lifestyle. And so my friend and colleague at The Village Voice, the great writer and editor and author, Zach Barron, Zach takes the next logical step. For a circa 2010 indie rock blogger, Zach interviews the guy. Hell yeah! Headline! The Beach Fossils bassist responds. Colon, why John Pena threw his bass into the East River. Solid headline. Great SEO. Zach does a quick email interview with this guy, and he asks how John's bandmates feel when he trashes or deep sixes the band's gear on stage. And John says, quote, I don't think