Hello cry babies! Today’s episode is all about the role of popular music in a capitalist hellscape! How has our situation changed since the postmodern turn? What are we to make of popular music in the era of capitalist realism and depressive hedonia? What if it turns out we’re all watching Infinite Jest in small chunks without realizing it? How can we meet enough of our needs to be able to launch a revolution? We’re getting into the critical theory of it all with Dr. Macon Holt.
Content Warning: suicide, genocide, depression
Timestamps
00:00: intro
4:24: guest intro and book project
23:10: what the fuck is going on? (workshops)
37:25: Labubu as an index of desire
48:12: what’s making guest cry
References
Fisher, Mark. 2009. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zer0 Books.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of a Style. Routledge.
Holt, Macon. 2019. Pop Music and Hip Ennui: A Sonic Fiction of Capitalist Realism. Bloomsbury.
Holt, Macon. 2020. “The Entertainment.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Anthropology of Sound, edited by Holger Schulze. Bloomsbury.
Mooney, Gavin. 2012. “Neoliberalism is bad for our health.” International journal of health services: planning, administration, evaluation, 42( 3): 383–401. https://doi.org/10.2190/HS.42.3.b
Wallace, David Foster. 1996. Infinite Jest. Little, Brown and Company.
