Synthpop’s futurism is now a superseded past rather than an available future

Evidence

Part of what separates Darkstar from their synthpop forebears is the fact that the synthesiser no longer connotes futurity. But Darkstar are not retreating from a vivid sense of futurity – because there is no such futurity from which they could retreat. This becomes clear when you compare the Darkstar cover of ‘Gold’ to the Human League original. It’s not just that one is no more futuristic than the other; it’s that neither are futuristic. The Human League track is clearly a superseded futurism, while the Darkstar track seems to come after the future. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 448

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Fischer’s present-centric ‘slow cancellation of the future’ thesis and to the earlier chapters’ account of 2001 / Lost futures. — connects to: Trap reasserted a futurist aesthetic against 2010s retromania — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 393; Contemporary pop is trapped between a vacuous present and an unrecoverable past — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1314; Old electronic music no longer ages because the culture stopped progressing — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1237
• SEED: Angle: how ‘1950s-style futurism’ reversed—the synth itself stopped signifying futurity and became retro, a marker of time’s failure.

Broader Connections

• Old electronic music no longer ages because the culture stopped progressing #expands (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1237
• Trap reasserted a futurist aesthetic against 2010s retromania #qualifies (0.78) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 393
• Contemporary pop is trapped between a vacuous present and an unrecoverable past #corroborates (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1314