The Music Press Has Decided to Pivot

a.k.a. After years of pushing star worship and post-pandemic silliness, Pitchfork and Resident Advisor have spun up a new narrative.

Change is in the air.

Not substantive change, of course. Even a casual glance at the news (or just social media) makes clear that there’s been no real deviation from a world of endless war, ruthless capitalism, blatant narcissism and ever-spiraling anxiety. Music is often said to be an escape from all that, at or least some sort of balm. But in a time when ticket prices are skyrocketing, publications are disappearing, streaming has hollowed out many artists’ income streams and touring has become prohibitively expensive for anyone’s who’s not an established legacy act, white-hot pop star or top-tier DJ, it’s no wonder that so much of the music discourse has been riddled with tension and negativity during the past few years.

Dance music has been particularly susceptible to this dark turn. During the doldrums of lockdown, there was frequent talk of a euphoric return to the dancefloor once the pandemic restrictions receded, but that never really happened. Attendance figures have been inconsistent. Nightclubs are closing. Festivals are struggling too. DJ fees may be higher than ever, but so are the costs associated with that career path, and “making it” in that realm increasingly requires the embrace of full-blown influencer behavior.

None of this has necessarily stopped the flow of quality new music—given the sheer volume of tunes being released these days, there’s always plenty of good stuff on offer, at least for the shrinking cohort of fans who are still willing to seek it out. Yet the party soundtrack of the past few years has routinely been less than inspiring, as DJs, desperate to capture the attention of an internet-fried generation whose introduction to club culture primarily came via streams and social media, ratcheted up tempos and filled their sets with nostalgia-triggering karaoke fodder. These developments, not surprisingly, haven’t sat well with older heads, who’ve made their dissatisfaction—and their belief that new arrivals are “ruining” dance music—abundantly clear. Although this sort of intergenerational sniping has always been present in the culture, it’s now been turbocharged by algorithms and social media platforms, pushing dance music into a corner in which conflict is the most reliable driver of conversation.

Sounds pretty bleak, no?

Bleak storylines will always attract a certain audience (i.e. grumpy dudes online), but in the real world, it’s hard to sustain a culture when the prevailing narratives all seem to revolve around the idea that said culture is crumbling. In the face of endless negativity, even the most dedicated fans will usually grow exasperated and turn their attentions elsewhere, and that prospect should have the contemporary dance music industry—which, to be clear, is a global, multibillion-dollar enterprise—worrying about its long-term vitality. The music press—an already distressed sector of the industry that’s uniquely dependent on sustained consumer engagement—seems to be acutely aware of this fact, and during the past few months, some of its most prominent outlets have made a concerted effort to turn the proverbial page, ginning up narratives that the culture has come to its senses and brighter days are on the horizon.

This is the change that’s in the air—a change of rhetoric. And though it’s not yet clear if audiences will buy it, it is fascinating to watch the attempted pivot unfold in real time.