‘We’ve Lost Dancing’: The euphoric sounds of post-pandemic pop

Abstract

This article focuses on the aesthetics of European pop music in the aftermath of the 2019–23 COVID-19 pandemic. I will suggest that this created the perfect conditions for the proliferation of a new kind of pop. Euphoric in tone, post-pandemic pop has been orientated towards the dance floor, nostalgic for 1980s sounds and unconcerned with lyrical complexity. However, it is not without pathos. I will argue that the interpolation of 1980s synth-pop is a symbolic return to the AIDS crisis. I will suggest that musical codes aestheticize sadness in a way that is both familiar and distant. In this direction, film and television soundtracks are particularly potent. Russel T. Davies’s It’s a Sin (2021) screened at the height of the pandemic became a lens through which many understood COVID-19, with music a tool for processing loss, longing and tragedy. The proliferation of disco during this period repositioned the genre as a contemporary form. Focusing on the summer of 2023, however, I will contend that in the revival of Italo disco, we encounter futuristic sensibility, which perfectly fits the post-pandemic mood. A paradoxical gift from our 1980s ancestors, Italo could be the key to unlocking the paralysis of never-ending reminiscence. It is time to turn the lights on the disco and explore the contemporary resonance of a genre that has always existed in the shadows.