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I will point out that Europe is still a major force in music. Particularly in the realm of electronic dance music; DJs and producers like David Guetta (French), Martin Garrix (Dutch), Armin Van Buuren (Dutch), R3HAB (Dutch of Moroccan ancestry), Alesso (Swedish), Tiësto (Dutch), Sebastian Ingrosso (Swedish), Ofenbach (French), the recently disbanded Daft Punk (French) and the late Avicii (Swedish) have all been massive figures in dance-pop music for decades, including composing and producing mega-hits with famous artists from America, the UK, Australia, etc.
Yes, this is not a cultural achievement on the level of the great European orchestral music tradition, nor even of the intellectually-stimulating European high cinema of the 20th century, but I think it’s at least as respectable as Spaghetti Westerns, and certainly considerably more popular and lucrative.
Music is dead as a cultural touchcpoint.
I think this is a delusional take, and that major music artists are still an extremely important part of the cultural zeitgeist. I don’t know what it would take to convince you otherwise.
Really? Dylan, Hendrix, The Beatles, etc all touched culture. They molded it and it molded them and what was spit out changed the world. You can’t help when you think of Vietnam thinking of the soundtrack to Vietnam.
Today? There is some small commercial stuff. You see people trying to make statements but it comes off less organic and more “we are supposed to stand for something.”
Who is the soundtrack of the 2020s?
I mean I have some idea but that's more like 2010s.
A fairly niche band and not even its most recognizable song?
How old are you? This song is instantly recognizable to a huge portion of Millennials, zoomers and gen alpha across cultures.
Was the song used in some sort of video game or extremely online meme? I think I’m at least in the 95th percentile for this site’s user base in terms of knowledge of popular music, and I was not familiar with this song, despite having been a big fan of MGMT’s debut album Oracular Spectacular when it came out. I’d be surprised if this is the sort of ubiquitously-recognizable song you’re saying it is.
Yeah it had / has a huge presence on social media. It’s extremely popular and well known in online culture, which as we both know tends to leak copiously into the mainstream at this point.
People used to use it all the time in video edits to the point of cliche.
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