Pop music’s stagnation mirrors politics’ collapse into administering capitalism

Evidence

At the end of history, the impasses of politics are perfectly reflected by the impasses in popular music. As political struggle gave way to petty squabbles over who is to administrate capitalism, so innovation in popular music has been supplanted by retrospection; in both cases, the exorbitant ambition to change the world has devolved into a pragmatism and careerism. A certain kind of depressive “wisdom” predominates. Once, things might have seemed to happen, but we won’t get fooled again. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1279

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels Hauntology/Burn Out or the Debateable Lands and Fisher’s broader thesis that cultural stasis reflects post-political neoliberalism. — connects to: Destranged music culture conditions acceptance of capitalist ordinariness. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 71; Pop songs by independent women encode consciousness deflated under capitalist realism — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1378; The process of manufactured pop became more compelling than the music itself — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 135 (+1 more)
• SEED: An essay on ‘why is music nostalgic now’ tracing political defeat to cultural retrospection.

Broader Connections

• Destranged music culture conditions acceptance of capitalist ordinariness. #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 71
• Pop songs by independent women encode consciousness deflated under capitalist realism #exemplifies (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1378
• The process of manufactured pop became more compelling than the music itself #expands (0.70) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 135