Mainstream dance-pop’s forced euphoria masks rather than relieves cultural depression
Evidence
Yet there’s an unconvincing – or perhaps unconvinced – quality to so much of mainstream culture’s hedonism now. Oddly, this is most evident in the annexing of R&B by club music. When former R&B producers and performers embraced dance music, you might have expected an increase in euphoria, an influx of ecstasy. But the reverse has happened, and it’s as if many of the dancefloor tracks are pulled down by a hidden gravity, a disowned sadness. … The digitally–enhanced uplift in the records by producers such as Flo-Rida, Pitbull and will.i.am is like a poorly photoshopped image or a drug that we’ve hammered so much we’ve become immune to its effects. It’s hard not to hear these records’ demands that we enjoy ourselves as thin attempts to distract from a depression that they can only mask, never dissipate. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 461
Categorization
- QUESTION: Is there empirical evidence (e.g. tempo, key, lyrical content analysis) that chart dance music has become sadder or that listeners perceive forced uplift? Worth chasing.
- XREF: Echoes Fisher’s broader ‘depressive hedonia’ concept and Theodor Adorno’s critique of the culture industry’s affirmative character. — connects to: Dance music’s inward turn traded collective affect for privatised emotion — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 450; Digital club-pop euphoria masks rather than relieves depression — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1305; Rave culture’s energy may be one symptom of a wider cultural depletion — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1226 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Digital club-pop euphoria masks rather than relieves depression
#corroborates(0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1305 - Pop hedonism’s forced uplift masks a depression it cannot dissipate
#corroborates(0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1305 - Rave culture’s energy may be one symptom of a wider cultural depletion
#complicates(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1226