Cyclical Trends, Escapism, and Irony: The Disco Revival
There was a major disco revival in 2020 with Kylie Minogue’s Disco, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and After Hours by the Weeknd. With their four on the floor beats, syncopated basslines, and synthesizers, the musical style makes you really want to dance, which is frustrating since none of us can go to the club, but that also may be why there’s so much disco right now. Bruno Mars has been prepping us for years and we probably would have gotten this disco revival either way due to the cyclical nature of music, but right now there’s a perfect storm of circumstances setting us up for disco music.
Music styles tend to come back into fashion after they’ve been out of fashion for a while, which is usually around 20, 40, 60, etc. years. Artists like Bruno Mars and Pharell have primed us for disco by releasing funk music in the years leading up to now. Disco was mainly a 70’s style of music, which wouldn’t make it fit perfectly in the 20 year trend cycle, but the current disco revival has a distinctly 80’s flare à la Olivia Newton-John like in Dua Lipa’s song “Physical” and its corresponding 80’s dance workout style music video. The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” also sounds distinctly 80’s because of its new wave synth riffs. So, a post-disco (??) revival might be a more accurate title for the current state of music. Either way, this dance music movement was inevitable because of the cyclical nature of music.
However, the Covid-19 crisis has caused the disco revival to become popular as escapist music. Even though we can’t go to concerts or clubs, we can dance to disco on a Zoom party or even alone in our rooms to cheer us up. With real life already being stressful and depressing, people want music that distracts from reality and uplifts them. In addition to this, the pandemic moved everyone online, contributing to the rise of TikTok, an audio-oriented app. Dance challenges, along with their corresponding songs, go viral on the app because they’re catchy and kids want to participate in the fun challenges. Disco-inspired songs like “Say So” by Doja Cat and “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa have blown up on the app because they’re easy to dance to and make dance challenges for.
The disco movement is also a reaction against the serious attitude around alternative music that was prevalent in the last decade since young people are obsessed with being self-aware. If you take yourself too seriously now you’re considered pretentious. Millennials’ approach to self-awareness manifests in irony, and we’re starting to see Gen Z using camp as their approach to irony and self-awareness since 2019 when it was the Met Gala theme (which I initially thought meant outdoor camping). So the fun-loving, over-the-top nature of disco is a good counter to the serious hipster era we’re all trying to distance ourselves from. Of course we will outgrow this too and try to distance ourselves from this style when it gets stale, but at this moment it works for fronting as self-aware.
Disco has made our quarantines more fun and less serious. The timing of it was perfect since we all want to be distracted from the grave times we live in and are also trying to be more woke. Hopefully we get a chance to dance to some disco in the clubs before it goes out of style again.
