They weren't art school kids. They were just neighborhood kids, amongst the football chants and graffiti, playing rock and roll. Legend has it they saw the Sex Pistols and somehow got even more punk and more pop at the same time. I think you can hear that. From the soccer stadium chants to the beginnings of Oi! And if you don't immediately understand the punk and pop power boost that is Sham 69, check out this clip from Top of the Pops in 1978. Don't skip ahead, you need the countdown to #1 to really set the stage (and, more on that in a minute).

That countdown makes me think of the algorithms of today. The algo then was doing its job, telling you what to pay attention to, and the jump from Grease to Sham 69 feels jarring but isn't really jarring at all, if you think about it. Childhood friends doing singalongs on TV kinda applies to both, just saying. But watch the audience reaction to Sham 69 in that live performance. Watch his hat come off singing with them.

So much was being spilled on divisiveness then. I only know that second hand because - age - obviously, but you go back and the 70s felt like everything was falling apart. You see that against the pop hits of the era and the cleaned up, commercial, pseudo-wholesome Americanized post-war fantasy, it almost feels like memes. Yet here you have this song about youth culture as a unifier landing in the middle of it all.

Music history is a weird version of how the algorithms over time have changed. How the curators have shifted. How much stuff falls into the cracks and spills over like this.

We think about how weird the algorithms in our lives are, how dominant and influential, how nudge-heavy they've become - but you also have to admit, the old algos were pretty trippy when you look at them for a minute, too.

I was putting this song on a mix to play while my brother was in town and ended up down a rabbit hole. Totally worth it, in all the ways, and grateful to have gotten this reminder of how much now is just like every other time in the history of humanity.

Come on kids. Be united. Sham 69 makes it sound pretty great.