Massive commercial success amid modest innovation reveals audiences’ diminished desire

Evidence

What alarms me is the lack of alarm about pop’s current situation. Where is the chorus of disapproval and disquiet about a group like the Arctic Monkeys? Granted, it is not that the Arctic Monkeys are significantly worse than any of their retro forebears (although if anything ought to set alarm bells ringing, it is a situation where “not being worse” than mediocre predecessors is thought of as worthy of comment, still less of muted celebration). What is novel is the discrepancy between the Arctic Monkeys’ modest “achievements” and the scale of their success. Critical success is more easily bought than ever, of course, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the NME rates the Monkeys’ album as fifth best British album of all time (disgust would be more an appropriate response, actually). But such subjective and professionally expedient over-valuations would be insignificant were it not for the quantitative scale of the Arctic Monkeys’ success — fastest selling UK debut album ever! What this implies is a libidinal deficit in pop’s audience as well as in its old media commentariat — a much more worrying trend. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1086

Categorization

• XREF: Pre-echoes Fisher’s concept of ‘popular modernism’ versus the retrograde present — pop audience libidinal deficit anticipates his later arguments about capitalist realism and the cancellation of the future. — connects to: Artistic success is a reified reflection of the money audiences pay — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 424; Streaming’s growth demands forced it to cater to unsophisticated tastes — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 647
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: is the Arctic Monkeys case, read through ‘libidinal deficit,’ still analytically valid for later eras of streaming-era pop?

Broader Connections

• Artistic success is a reified reflection of the money audiences pay #corroborates (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 424
• Streaming’s growth demands forced it to cater to unsophisticated tastes #exemplifies (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 647