Image Credit: College Times

It’s 2008, and the global financial crisis hits Britain like an economic implosion: employment rates are down, housing and rent prices feel almost impossible to meet, and businesses are closing. But the compelling whispers of pop music tell people to party and dance away the struggles that are so rapidly rising. This was Recession Pop in full force – when times are tough, pop music offers a fun, exhilarating and liberating form of distraction.

Iconic artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and the Black Eyed Peas dominated the charts back then with heaps of party anthems providing soundtracks to people’s youth. Upbeat and optimistic, the high BPMs became the cultural cure to collective fear and anxiety, the antidote to life’s more depressing reality.

It’s no surprise that Recession Pop seems to be returning. Almost 20 years later and we’re facing potentially worse economic hardship, brought on by post-Covid unemployment, the messy aftermath of Brexit, and the soaring cost of living. Against this backdrop, we now have the flirty and feminine Sabrina Carpenter, the bratty party-girl Charli xcx, and the theatrical ‘Pink Pony Club’-esque anthems of Chappell Roan blasting the charts. Their addictive bridges, high-energy rhythms, and trendy soundbites are the perfect form of escapism for our current struggles. 

The compelling new album Fancy That by PinkPatheress encapsulates the nostalgia associated with Recession Pop, taking inspiration from the playful sounds of 2000’s pop music whilst sampling earlier UK garage classics in ‘Girl Like Me’ (Basement Jaxx) and ‘Illegal’ (Underworld). The blending of the two distinctly 2000s genres shows the thematic deep-diving that current Recession Pop seems to be doing. Pink, too, incorporates a background of euphoric, fast BPM sounds against the foreground of emotional and more personal lyrics, especially in ‘Girl Like Me’: “You can’t pay for therapy (for therapy)/Nothing left to bleed.” Recession Pop, it would seem, is coming of age.  

2020s Recession Pop has developed a distinct sound that ultimately borrows from its 2000s predecessor, but infuses garage, disco, and dance with lyrics on queer relationships, personal trauma, and the politics of girlhood. This new rise of Recession Pop has become the dance-party anthem to the almost primal hunt for identity and self-expression in a world where it seems impossible to be able to afford it. We are craving spectacle over realism, trying to escape the chaos consuming the world around us, whilst simultaneously trying to navigate and develop our self-perception and purpose in it. 

But this escapism can often become dangerous. How much longer can we keep distracting ourselves with illusions and performances? How much longer can we keep dancing away from reality? Recession Pop has come full circle, just as the collapse of the economy has. A powerhouse of the last two decades, Gaga’s new energetic pop album Mayhem is probably the biggest indicator that it truly has. 

Music is undeniably fun again, but at what cost? Yes, self-expression within Recession Pop music is what makes it so captivating. However, it’s concerning that it takes a financial crisis, worsening climate change, and war erupting across the world for creativity and flamboyancy to come into the mainstream again, and for the artistry behind pop music to get the acclaim it truly deserves.