Why did you think this?
Or reflections on Poptimism, Y2K, and Art.
Recently, I read a really terrible review on Pitchfork. Don’t fret – I’m fine now.
This review by Meaghan Garvey was a critical evaluation of Blackout by Britney Spears in the year 2024. In it, Garvey fawned over the production and spoke rapturous praise over the more obviously personal touches to the record. She also took the time to shit all over FutureSex/LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake, describing the record as limp. An opinion I not only disagree with, but think is offensive to the actual subject of the review.
But in this mind-melting moment of confusion and annoyance that an article was taking valuable space to shit on another record for no reason, I came to a personal conclusion. Not only was it bad, but unnecessary. Late. A self-flagellation by a publication that did not bother with the album upon release for a reason.
Why was this review published?
For many reasons, but mostly for optics.
Over the past few months, I’ve been watching the bubblings of what I expect will be a major backlash against Poptimism. A slow burn critical rejection of the mindset that all art is created equal, and all goals are valid. After a decade of Pop As Art, we’re seeing a slow return to the separation of the two concepts.
Pop Music has become somewhat of an obsession for critics eager to align themselves with a fickle readership but has only recently rebounded from a particularly lacklustre commercial decade. This is true across most of the entertainment industry post-social media, but Pop Music as a genre was particularly kneecapped by a series of strange choice and unreliable consumers. Whereas Hip Hop and Rock had their own ecosystems to sustain themselves, Pop is predicated on dominance. It latches onto popular genres during weak periods, but it has never had to survive irrelevance.
That is, until the early 2010s essentially abandoned party music in favour of faceless electronic dance music and dour, anti-fun alt-pop. Some of it very good. Most pop critics at the time put this squarely at the feet of Lorde and her affect-heavy hit single ‘Royals’, but now the blame is mostly pawned onto Lana Del Rey. A more accurate assessment of lasting influence, but deeply unfair to the incredibly commercial Born To Die.
The truth is the coma of party music, which we will assume to include a wide array of sub-genres like dance-pop and bubblegum, had been building for some time. Our superstars increasingly turns to maximalism to keep our attention as the music became increasingly anonymous. The few enduring icons allowed cultural legitimacy pre-Poptimism died, had faded out, or embarrassed themselves. The latest generation of pop song writers were weaker than their predecessors. With each passing year, the situation looked worse.
As the only surviving pop stars of the 2010s, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Ariana Grande, all saw themselves replicated a thousand times over – to limited success. Radio turned increasingly back to Hip Hop as the safe bet it had been in the mid-2000s, as starlet after starlet embarrassed themselves with shoddy samples and tropical production. It seemed dire. The answer was apparently to strip the genre of its most enduring qualities of glamour and showmanship in order to court a supposedly more discerning consumer base.
Thus, from the seeds of Lana Del Rey and other late-2000s/early 2010s fringe pop and alt-pop icons grew an industry of sad, menacing pop singers. Billie Eilish led the fray, but the industry as a whole began promoting this idea of an evolved ingenue. And unlike their decades of predecessors, they were beloved from the jump. Eilish won all the Grammys on her first try. Olivia Rodrigo shot to the stratosphere. Madison Beer.
And now – Pop is both relevant and cool! The 2000s are back so we even get to be nice to dance pop divas the first go around. Tate McRae is the face of the future – wait, no…it’s Sabrina Carpenter!
Returning to the Pitchfork review, I have to ask who that was for?
Not for fans of Pop as a genre, considering how little time was spent actually dissecting the album critically. Nor for Britney Spears fans, considering how generic the praise actually is. Certainly not for the traditional readers of Pitchfork pre-Poptimism.
I’d argue that this review, like so much of revisionist 2000’s nostalgia, is for future reference. Much like everything regarding Spears in the current media ecosystem, it’s a further reflection of the need to atone for all sins, without addressing the root cause of a system that exploited her. This review yet another attempt to consume her and the wider memory of what was good and what might be good, but under the guise of praise. It isn’t a review, but more a mantra.
Halsey recently released a single called ‘Lucky’ that I would describe as a poor remix of the original Spears song. It’s in the same vein, and the second time she has milked the Spears legacy to align her story with one more significant to the cultural memory. I don’t begrudge her this, except that she has made better art and the end result is flaccid.
Charli XCX also sampled Spears recently, on the song ‘Spring Breakers’ from her album ‘brat’. It’s less obvious than Halsey for a variety of reasons, but still hit a sour note for me. The reshaping and absorbing of this woman who is so hyper-visible and yet so distant.
If Poptimism has done anything to Pop as a genre, it has made it extremely fond of its own navel. Pastiche is king and it isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. McRae – referenced earlier – found a (second) wave of success by hopping on a Timberland-like beat. Rodrigo makes music that regularly sounds like Avril Lavigne. In an act of cowardice, Selena Gomez’s last single ‘Love On’ was a blatant attempt to make herself into Sabrina Carpenter, which is a funhouse lense of Carpenter’s own obvious influences.
There’s a tendency to jokingly tell artists to put away their references. Most people aren’t responding to the actual reference, they’re annoyed at the lack of creativity. The now-common adage online of “put the [REFERENCE] down” is less an outcry against unoriginality, but laziness. It’s clear when someone walks that line well, and when they do something that pings too closely to our finely tuned cultural memory.
None of this is bad. My own feelings don’t make it an evil thing to look to the Spears legacy for inspiration. Pop has always been hyper-referential and masturbatory. We never stopped hearing Donna Summer or the Jacksons in the vocal tics of their successors, we’ll never stop seeing people remake Madonna’s greatest hits to various degrees of failure, and we’ll never stop talking about how important this all is. But much like how sampling can either be genius or lazy, so can these cultural critiques.
I get why these lazy, repetitive pieces of cultural commentary exist. There’s an audience for them, and people are convinced that this retread will be the one that brings us closer to absolution. But I’m bored of people with nothing to add except petty swipes at acceptable targets.
In five years, once he’s either hit rock bottom or been given enough shit that everyone feels bad, someone like Garvey will be upheld as a villain in the Timberlake story. The sands of time wash away all misdemeanours for people who actually make good art, unless they cross an invisible line, and even then, that is rare. We tell these stories ad nauseum and now without a tinge of actual introspection.
One thing I want to end on is, all of this feels like we’re trying to cement history in place now. But that isn’t how this all works. Time will probably not look kindly back at any of us – if there is something at all to remember.
Poptimism was an attempt to allow people to openly enjoy the music they liked, but the only people not doing that were slaves to their own branding. That feels like an increasingly heavy thought, particularly as people have transposed their lives, relationships, and opinions online. But there is no justification for the music you like, the movies you watch, or the books you read. Objective truths? Maybe. But you shouldn’t need mass-approval to listen to pop music or empathise with a pop star.
In a few years’ time, when we’ve decided ‘Espresso’ is actually garbage, will you regret singing along?