Can pop music actually predict a recession?

These days, it seems like anything could be a recession indicator. Press-on nails. Strip club habits. Lena Dunham’s exodus from New York. But how do we really know if there’s an impending economic contraction? “There’s a super wide variety of what qualifies as a so-called ‘recession indicator’ on the internet,” Wall Street Journal markets reporter Hannah Erin Lang told me in the latest episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast. “Economists and investors are often looking at these offbeat sources of data or offbeat trends. Former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan famously looked at sales of men’s underwear with the idea being that if you have to cut back, this might be a place where nobody else is going to know but yourself.” There’s another alleged recession indicator taking the internet by storm: music. People are now referring to the late-aughts and early 2010s dance hits as “recession pop.” But is there any credence to this supposed harbinger of economic downturn? That’s the question posed to Switched on Pop cohost Charlie Harding on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me. [Media: https://megaphone.link/VMP1911179378] Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545. Does music change with the economic outlook? We’re all looking for a crystal ball, and music feels like it’s got to be it because that’s where we go to get into our feelings. So are our playlists indicating larger economic trends? I don’t think so. That’s interesting because lately there’s been all this talk of recession pop. What is recession pop referring to? Recession pop is a made-up, after-the-fact genre, referring to upbeat, bubblegum pop music from the time of the Great Recession. We’re talking about Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Kesha. I think that Katy Perry’s whole oeuvre represents that era better than any other. We’re talking about songs like “Teenage Dream,” a song which has this ongoing chord progression that never resolves, that makes you have the feeling of the teenage life that will just never end, you’re never going to grow up, and it has this wonderful nostalgic quality to it. Or “Last Friday Night”: the party that is the rager that you’re gonna go all-out in. Those songs had a light, effervescent, post-disco, very poppy programmed music kind of vibe. I want to go back in time to the time of bolero jackets and statement belts... You do? Well, okay, not literally. But we’re going to go on this journey. What was the sound of that time? It has to sound a little over-polished, really well-made, programmed music. Meaning drum machines, synthesizers, guitars in the line of like Nile Rodgers from Chic — but not nearly as well done — sort of funk-style, disco-style guitars. You might have some really cheesy programmed strings in the background. Then the lyrics have to be either “Party, party all night forever!” or larger platitudes about being a girlboss. What else was going on in music during that time? Other than these fun, poppy, “we’re going to party all night long” songs. Music had been going through a recession for half a decade at that point. Ever since the turn of the millennium and Napster, the illegal downloading market basically had eviscerated the music industry. It saw its revenues cut in half. Business was in freefall, to the degree that they thought that their future was in downloadable ringtones. Indie music was really big as the mainstream labels were struggling to figure out how to make sales. Hip-hop was going through a bling and party era. There was a lot of upbeat music during these uncertain times, that’s certainly true, [but] I think it’s important to note as well that during the Great Recession there was plenty of music which didn’t reflect an upbeat attitude. One of the biggest songs of 2007 was “What Goes Around Comes Around” by Justin Timberlake. [There’s also] “Umbrella” by Rihanna. I don’t think of those as upbeat, happy songs. If you have to protect yourself from the rain under an umbrella, this is more acknowledging our deep upset at the national condition. I think that even in the recession pop era, there’s music of all kinds: upbeat, downbeat, sad, happy. And so I actually think that the genre is a very slippery one that represents a lot of different kinds of music. Are we hearing that sound pop up now? Some people have said that Chappell Roan and Charli XCX are digging into the recession era in their new music. I’m a little more skeptical. If recession pop were doing really well right now, Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World” would have been a huge hit, and it has been a real stinker for her. Why are we talking about recession pop right now? Everyone’s looking for vibes of what’s going on in the larger economy, but I think more largely, millennials are aging out of being cool. Oh, no. You stop listening to new music usually between 25 and 30 years old. And then when you get into a position of power where you become a curator of culture, now it’s your time to assert: The thing that was good when I was young is still good. So this could be less about the economy and more about like those of us born in the ’80s and early ’90s kind of having a midlife crisis. Absolutely, I think there was a huge cultural midlife crisis and a claiming of power. I’ve seen tons of bars and clubs during these recession pop dance parties and I’m hearing like all these samples in music from current artists from that era. How do you explain all this? Recession pop is very much a real thing and it’s completely made-up. There was no such thing as recession pop during the recession. It’s a term that was made up only very recently. It is absolutely a nostalgia-driven way of getting those millennials who’ve got more disposable income than at any other point in their life back going out to clubs again. I also think that people are trying to remember their youth. That was a very powerful time for millennials. I think the lightheartedness of that term doesn’t properly reflect the trauma that many people were going through. People were losing their jobs, their homes, their families were being ripped apart. And so I think the way that recession pop is being invoked is not trying to dig into the darkest moments of the recession, but rather remembering what it’s like to be 19 years old.

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Can pop music actually predict a recession?