When thinking about the political and economic state of the world, it is no wonder that someone’s direct response to all that is to throw on the thickest pair of noise-canceling headphones, and walk around the world with their peripherals in constant blur mode. It is a terrifying, and honestly really destabilizing time to be young. With the spiraling of existentialist-core on TikTok, the ever-present commodification of nihilism, and of course the ‘let it burn’ mentality that has the youth lamenting over the world that they have inherited, our generation has it a little different, compared to older generations of youth.

Yet, underneath all of that, pulsing and beckoning like a siren’s call to a desperate sailor, comes the ever-catchy, ever-persistent, voice of pop music. People can hate on it, which they have, and others can defend it with their life and soul on the line, but no one can deny that pop music has carried generations to places of joy and collective connection like no other genre. Of course, you could bring up moshing at heavy metal, or trauma bonding at a Mitski concert, but there is something innocent and addictive about pop that makes it just the right recipe for a good time. And, right now, that is more of a luxury than anything else, given that there is always a shortage of good times for people who do not have access to it that easily anymore.

Pop has always been there to slip between the lines of a smile and the teeth of panic. So, it is no coincidence that as inflation rises, owning a house quickly becomes a facade, and as democracy wobbles, the charts suddenly start getting ruled by club beats and serotonin synths.

Think Charli XCX’S Brat summer, Addison Rae’s Fame Is a Gun, Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun, Troye Sivan’s Rush, mother Chappel Roan’s Femininomenon, PinkPantheress’s Tonight, and so on and so forth. You could tell I could probably keep going, which is precisely the point. It is a growing and flourishing list that is filled with mirror balls of songs that are spinning over disaster while shining their sparkly, iridescent lights of hope over their listeners. And they are definitely not the first, or the last ones who have tapped into this rhythm of the people.

During the Great Depression, there was the rise of swing music and rave culture as a way to transform hopelessness into ecstasy - to escape a reality too daunting to face, and instead face a much brighter, albeit frenzied, room of people equally as terrified, yet putting up a brave face to hide it. The formula persists. When the world out there is collapsing, the room in here is breathing it all out. Even if it sounds absurd that we are dancing amidst all the chaos and uncertainty, there is always a resistance in joy, and by letting yourself loose to it, you can turn survival into spectacle.

Pop’s current era, what I am labelling as recession pop, is one whose entire goal is to just have some fun. Even if the content of the songs seems like it is something to cry about, heartbreak, fear of failure, loss, pop artists do this silly and effortless thing where they take all of that, and run it through the distortion of layered harmonies and beat drop. So, in a way, they are never hiding it, or making you scream the lyrics believing in some other reality - they are simply wrapping up a pretty package for you to indulge in for just a moment, and give you all the pain, just a bit remixed.

It is a sentiment that is essentially the secret of how our generation has been keeping it all together. People have started realising that everything just seems off, and that the discomfort brought by the unknown makes us always turn back to what is familiar. There is this endurance to remain unfazed and nonchalant, even if we may be brazen, in the face of a yelling, abusive higher power. But, even against all that, we know that smiling in their face will not always fix everything in the ways that we have hoped, so to pass the time, it is worth believing that the vibrations of the floor beneath you come from music, and not from the foundations of what we have believed in falling apart.

All I am saying is that people need to start giving pop-music some credit over the usual “this always plays on the radio” / “this is earworm music” sentiment that some take on. Yuck on people’s yum, that’s fine, but if you find yourself with this ball of energy in your chest, and you do not know what to do with it, maybe pull up some Bad Bunny or Lady Gaga and see if they will make a difference. Because, you do not have to save the world tomorrow, but you can give yourself this night.