Mainstream rock music now insulates listeners from the present rather than registering its tensions.

Evidence

Where once even the most incorporated rock registered something about the tensions and temperature of the times, now you go to rock to be insulated from the present. Both U2 and their fellow headliner Beyoncé made gestures to “politics” in their sets — past struggles now reduced to an advertiser-friendly hopey-changey sentimentalism covering over a deeper, more pervasive sense that nothing of any consequence can ever change. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1295

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s broader thesis in Capitalist Realism about the loss of futurity and the incorporation of dissent. — connects to: Mass music’s regressive listening confirms rather than merely diverts its audience — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 96; Destranged music culture conditions acceptance of capitalist ordinariness. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 71; Degrading music into audio-fog makes it more evocative rather than less — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 264 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Mass music’s regressive listening confirms rather than merely diverts its audience #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 96
• Contemporary pop lacks forward momentum because the present is crowded out by the past #corroborates (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 381
• Mainstream music of the 2010s fixated on recreating past sounds rather than innovating #corroborates (0.80)
• Destranged music culture conditions acceptance of capitalist ordinariness. #corroborates (0.78) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 71
• Modern music’s ugliness is a deliberate strategy against a commercially desensitized hearing #complicates (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 68
• Degrading music into audio-fog makes it more evocative rather than less #qualifies (0.72) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 264