The Pitfalls of Poptimism

Editorial by Mark Mayhey reporting from London, UK

The son of Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren set £5m worth of punk memorabilia ablaze this year in protest of its appropriation by a mainstream that treats disposable pop music as worthy of serious thought.

If you're truly listening, however, the Washington Post's eloquent pop music critic Chris Richards says you already know that today’s music is every bit as magnificent and horrible as it ever was.

But as 2016 draws to a close, in a weirdly brave new world where the manner in which people consume media has become more fragmented and simultaneously more all-consuming, are global pop artists still just constructs of a system who exist only to be force-fed to the masses?

In three parts:

1. The Power
2. The Players
3. The Purpose

The views in this article are those of the author alone.
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