Retromania

Simon Reynolds's argument is that popular music, once driven by a restless "exploratory impulse" pushing toward the new — punk breaking from prog, rave breaking from rock, hip-hop breaking from disco — has, since roughly the turn of the millennium, turned its energy backward, obsessively revisiting, remixing, and reissuing its own history rather than generating new movements to rival them. He traces this to the digital era's collapse of scarcity: when virtually all recorded music ever made becomes instantly accessible via file-sharing, YouTube, and streaming, the once-powerful motivations of discovery and generational rupture lose their force, and the past becomes not a resource to draw from occasionally but an all-consuming atmosphere that never recedes.

Why this matters, in Reynolds's account, is that it isn't simple nostalgia — older generations have always looked backward — but something structurally different: a sense of the past as perpetually present, collapsing the linear sense of musical time that once let listeners feel they were witnessing something historically new. He worries this retromania doesn't just affect casual fans but has infiltrated the avant-garde itself, dulling the very corners of culture that used to reliably produce the unexpected.

Who should read it

Music critics, serious listeners, and anyone puzzled by the endless reunion tours, anniversary reissues, and genre revivals of the last two decades will find Reynolds's diagnosis sharp and well-argued, though it rewards readers already fluent in music history rather than casual pop fans.

About the author

Simon Reynolds is a British music journalist and critic, formerly of Melody Maker, known for influential books including Rip It Up and Start Again and Energy Flash, on post-punk and rave culture respectively.