Monoculture changed from narrow stylistic conformity to boundaryless genre mixing

Evidence

The success of “Old Town Road”—and the deus ex machina of Billy Ray Cyrus supporting the bedroom rap of a gay Black teen from Atlanta—marked the final step of omnivore tastes becoming an omnivore monoculture. The “mainstream” market was now all-inclusive and boundaryless, containing seemingly every possible genre. In previous notions of monoculture, the culture industry permitted only a very narrow set of stylistic conventions. During the late 1950s, for example, almost every pop song pulled from the same handful of chord progressions. In the omnivore monoculture, artists were free to draw from any genre, provided the end result was glossy, marketable pop (with clever digital promotion). This was the culmination of the Neptunes’ and Kanye West’s fusions of R&B, gospel, streetwear, street art, rock, techno, indie rock, reality TV, and high fashion. But before Lil Nas X, there was one stubborn holdout: country music. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 626

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: This is the crux of ‘omnivore monoculture’: not a narrow set of conventions but a boundaryless mainstream where any genre is allowed so long as it’s glossy and marketable.
• SEED: Directly usable for the reader’s counter-case: country music’s resistance then capitulation shows the monoculture expanded outwards, which still leaves room to argue something was lost — the very thing the era’s critics mourn.
• DEEPTHINKING: The core thesis of the book, in condensed form: monoculture’s content inverted (narrow to omnivorous) while its function (a mainstream that absorbs everything) persisted. This distinction between the form and content of monoculture is what the reader’s counter-argument must engage.

Related

• Omnivore monoculture allows any genre blend as long as output is glossy marketable pop (similarity 0.94)
• Genre boundaries historically encoded audience social divisions (similarity 0.78)