By: Jon Dolan

Back in the 1980s, hippies made “worldbeat”--a catchall for any music from outside America or England--a dirty word. Which is a shame. From African funk to Asian punk, Cuban rumba to Algerian disco, global pop is constantly mutating. In a small world that’s only getting smaller--and scarier--a little musical multilateralism goes a long way.

Spin: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

Beck: Sure.

When you do a song like "Debra," and people think you were being funny and kind of ironic, and then you do a song like "Lost Cause" and they think you're being very sincere and personal, they champion that. Why do you think people still need sincerity over inauthenticity?

Stephen Malkmus: No, I haven't. I got a CD in the mail this morning from Matador, a FedEx, you know, the track listing and stuff. I haven't listened to it yet.

How do you expect it's aged?

By: Jon Dolan

Rock transformed itself in 2002. Muscle-bound mooks were out. Bands with little budgets and big ambitions were in. The Strokes, the Hives, and the White Stripes took their DIY spirit to the masses. And music was more fun than it had been in years.

By: Jon Dolan

Starting in the 1980s, punk rockers in search of their roots and honky-tonk outlaws looking for something more real than Nashville's focus-group pop created a new sound out of down-home twang and rock rebellion. Here's a 30-plus-year retrospective of the insurgent country spirit.