Hill, S. (2024), 'We've Lost Dancing: The Euphoric Sounds of Post-Pandemic Pop', Journal of European Popular Culture Volume 14 Number 2, Intellect Books: Bristol.

 

 

Abstract

This article focuses on the aesthetics of European pop music in the aftermath of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the work of Butler (2020), Parivudhiphongs (2020), Yu-Cheong Yeung (2020), Lehman (2021), and Stratton (2022), I will suggest that the pandemic 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 80s sounds and unconcerned with lyrical complexity. However, it is not without pathos. Framed by Sierzputowski's (2021) work on disco, I will argue that the interpolation of 80s 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’ It’s a Sin (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. Rees (2021) argues that the proliferation of disco during this period repositioned the genre as a contemporary form. Focusing on the summer of 2023, however, I will argue that in the revival of Italo disco, we encounter futuristic a sensibility, which perfectly fits the post-pandemic mood. A paradoxical gift from our 80s 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.