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Volume 15, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2040-6134
  • E-ISSN: 2040-6142

Abstract

This article focuses on the aesthetics of European pop music in the aftermath of the 2019–23 COVID-19 pandemic. I will suggest that this created the perfect conditions for the proliferation of a new kind of pop. Euphoric in tone, post-pandemic pop has been orientated towards the dance floor, nostalgic for 1980s sounds and unconcerned with lyrical complexity. However, it is not without pathos. I will argue that the interpolation of 1980s synth-pop is a symbolic return to the AIDS crisis. I will suggest that musical codes aestheticize sadness in a way that is both familiar and distant. In this direction, film and television soundtracks are particularly potent. Russel T. Davies’s (2021) screened at the height of the pandemic became a lens through which many understood COVID-19, with music a tool for processing loss, longing and tragedy. The proliferation of disco during this period repositioned the genre as a contemporary form. Focusing on the summer of 2023, however, I will contend that in the revival of Italo disco, we encounter futuristic sensibility, which perfectly fits the post-pandemic mood. A paradoxical gift from our 1980s ancestors, Italo could be the key to unlocking the paralysis of never-ending reminiscence. It is time to turn the lights on the disco and explore the contemporary resonance of a genre that has always existed in the shadows.

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2024-07-22
2024-12-06
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Keyword(s): 1980s pop; AIDS; COVID-19; European; futurism; Italo disco; lockdown; nostalgia

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