Recession or not, trashy pop music is back in full swing during 2024. Music has always shaped culture, and culture has always shaped music. So, what does the return of “recession pop” mean for music, our culture, and our economy?
“Recession pop” refers to the type of dance-pop emerging from the late 2000s and early 2010s. Largely released during the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the 2012 world-ending fervor, recession pop lyrics focus on partying and feeling good when times are hard.
Kesha, Rihanna, Usher, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Britney Spears are just a few popular artists who defined the era. While dance pop typically features simple and catchy lyrics put to an upbeat tempo, songs released between 2007 and 2012 were particularly focused on dancing away your problems.
“Take my hand, I’ll show you the wild side / Like it’s the last night of our lives,” Kesha sings in “C’mon”, a song released the month before the world was supposed to end in December 2012. “We’ll keep dancing till we die.”
On Spotify, one user-made recession pop playlist described it as “pop music that made you forget about the economy.”
Music that glorified messiness, getting drunk and not caring about the next morning, and going crazy at the club was selling during a time when financial security was hard to come by. The escape from financial struggles that recession pop offered, even if you weren’t going to the club, was enough to lift spirits and whip your hair back and forth.
Charles Harding, a music adjunct professor at New York University, told CNBC, “The thing about the Great Recession and larger economic shifts is that they potentially touch all people, but they don’t touch people equally.”
With the hyper, catchy, devil-may-care dance pop-making charts, everybody can be equal in finding a way to dance like the DJs, making you fall in love.
Young people across social media are saying that recession pop is in its Renaissance. Newer pop artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter are making a rise, meanwhile long time dance pop vets like Katy Perry, Kesha, and Charli XCX are releasing new music too.
Early this month, Kesha’s single “JOYRIDE” made fans excited that her early 2010s sound was finally back. At the same time, everybody online seems to be bumping that new Charli XCX “brat” album like no other this month. Though Katy Perry’s newly released single “WOMAN’S WORLD” has received criticism for its flimsy feminist message, rising popstar Chappell Roan’s 2023 album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” and latest single “Good Luck, Babe!” stay solidly on music charts. And nobody can escape the catchy lyrics of Sabrina Carpenter’s single “Espresso” either.
If recession pops back, our economy is tanking again, right? Surprisingly, no—the economy in the United States is doing quite well on paper.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for July 2012 sits at 4.1%, a rising but significantly lower figure than 2012’s average of 8.2%. The rate of inflation has significantly slowed. The national GDP is rising, and a recession would require it to decline. The US seems to have bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic relatively well.
However, poverty and inflation rates from the recession pop era remain relatively the same. The stresses of the economy might be around because prices keep going up for goods, services, and housing. Americans feel financially squeezed more and more every month, even if, on paper, they aren’t.
Meanwhile, in states like Idaho, the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 2009, meaning while prices increase, wages stay the same. Though the US seems to have pretty much recovered from the pandemic, the effects on our economy and health are more insidious and more stressful overall.
Perhaps instead of a recession not affecting everyone equally in 2008, the pandemic is the cause in 2024. Though the world has returned to relative normalcy, the effects of mental and physical health and the economic hits of the pandemic seem to linger.
Recession pop may be returning because it’s a stressful time in the world. With plenty of domestic and foreign tragedies being reported on 24/7 and a heated presidential election upcoming, maybe what we all need right now is a little dancing. Now that clubs are open, more than ever in this decade, we need a bit of a “brat” summer.
Regardless of the state of the union, loud, hyper-dance pop that promotes clubbing like there’s no tomorrow is back in a noticeable way. We’re not working late because we’re singers like Sabrina Carpenter, but everyone should be able to find time to dance in our busy schedules.
Victoria Kingsmore can be reached at [email protected]