Recession pop, a real economic indicator?

Introduction

Due to recent activity in both world politics and the global economic climate there have been many questions on whether or not an economic decline is likely to occur. As people grow more weary of a recession it seems that more and more people have been looking for ‘unconventional’ indicators, as a result of this the ‘recession pop’ theory was developed, recently gaining popularity on social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X. So then what is recession pop, and how exactly was a link between trendy tunes and the global economy formed? Just how accurate of an indicator can it be? Interesting right? Then keep reading, it only gets better from here.

Just to start us off, what exactly is an economic recession? Well the International Monetary Fund (IMF) describes a recession as a ‘period of decline in economic activity. While most analysts and commentators use a less generalised definition, Most commentators and analysts use, as a practical definition of recession, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP)—the value of all goods and services a country produces‘ which is more commonly used to describe a recession in day to day life.

What is recession pop?

Recession pop can generally be described as songs which don’t have too much meaning, which are easy to listen to, with repetitive lyrics which have a big build up near the end, and a relatively high BPM ( beat per minute), a few good examples of this would be song which came out early 2008 to late 2009, around the time of the global financial crisis and American housing crisis. Songs such as ‘lets get it started’ by the black eyed peas, and ‘Blow’ by ke$ha.

Why are these songs associated with recessions?

These songs often embraced the concept of hedonism, which is described as ‘living and behaving in ways that mean you get as much pleasure out of life as possible, according to the belief that the most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself’ by the Cambridge dictionary. The use of upbeat music and hedonistic messaging can be seen as the entertainment industry providing listeners with a form of escapism during financial difficulties, which can be seen as the reason why songs from that time period are seen as ‘iconic’ and memorable.

Is recession pop coming back?

There has been a rise in popularity of upbeat music which have faster beats and hedonistic messaging it may only be due to the subgenre Hyperpop taking more inspiration from late 2000’s pop and dance rock music during the post pandemic time period making recession pop more palatable to the average listener creating an incentive for more producers to create and record ‘recession pop’ type music. This can be seen in the recent rise in popularity of artists such as Charlie XCX and Chappell Roan as well as the return of artists which are known for their recession pop music such as Pitbull , ke$ha, and Katy Perry releasing new songs.

But why is this style of music suddenly becoming more popular to use music as an escape the past few years as a result of the lockdowns during the pandemic, which have resulted in a higher reliance on technology as a medium for entertainment. This accompanied by the increase in demand for quick doses of dopamine which can be supplied by the fast BPM and upbeat style of the recession pop genre and current economic problems such as the increasing cost of living and stresses caused by the current political climate (such as the war in Gaza or the Iran/Israel bombing) have resulted in higher demands for the escape war? Well there could be a range of reasons, however it has gotten more and more common which recession pop provides.

Taken from (https://allevents.in/prahran/recession-pop-party-melbourne/200028409906937)

Can music popularity truly be used as an indicator for an economic recession?

Yes and no, while the stresses of an economic recession may lead to people finding an escape in music, however, there are many other escapist forms of media such as easy going comedy movies and fantasy books which can substitute music as they also gain popularity during periods of financial instability. Furthermore, it is impossible to use only one indicator to identify events such as an economic recession as there will always be inconsistencies in such trends; but -if paired with quantifiable data- type of media which is most commonly consumed could be a good method in identifying periods of financial stresses such as recessions.