Chuck Klosterman’s most recent book, “Rock*,” imagines an alternate history of 20th Century music where the Beatles fade into obscurity and Velvet Underground became the biggest mainstream rock band in history.

The Velvet Underground are “kind of ground zero” for the idea that there are, on the one hand, bands for critics and serious music fans and, on the other hand, commercial bands. And often the critics and superfans don’t take the megabands seriously. And over the last 20 years those two kinds of bands have converged.

Of course this conversation is about a lot more than pop music.

Klosterman talks with podcast host and fellow journalist Derek Thompson about fame and popularity, culture, contingency, why things become popular and the decline of reading.

It’s a fascinating conversation, like when you go into a bar and start talking with a stranger who has a million fascinating things to say about history, philosophy and pop culture, and you end up talking for hours and then you probably never see the guy again.