What Was the Modern Rock 500?

Counting Down the Evolution of Modern/Indie Rock & Independent Radio

Join us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 19 September for an AMS/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Lecture by Robin James.

Every Memorial Day Weekend from 1989-2009, and from 2023 until who knows when, the Cincinnati-area independent (internet) radio stations WOXY and Inhailer broadcast a countdown of the top 500 songs in their library. Dubbed “The Modern Rock 500” in 1989 and renamed “The Indie 500” in 2024, the chart’s contents can tell us a lot about what “modern rock” is and how it differs from alternative and indie. Doing a deep dive into each of the yearly countdowns, Robin James will show how the countdown shifts from a pluralistic and “modern” approach to genre to a more guitar-oriented one that views the influence of non-rock genres like electronic dance music and reggae/dub as relics from the 20th century. The ongoing existence of the Modern Rock 500 as an institution has an even more important lesson for lovers and practitioners of independent media: as an institution that survived the closure of WOXY in 2010 only to be resurrected again by former WOXY staff and the crew at Inhailer.com, The Modern Rock 500 both reveals the challenges indie media faces in an increasingly financialized industry, and models some successful tactics one indie media institution has used to survive amid those challenges.