House music and economic recession
“We need to keep an eye on the house market.”
I attended a dear friend’s birthday party last week, and as all the guests sat amicably chatting with one another around the elegantly arranged dining table, the topic of clubbing came up. I thought that the conversation might head in the direction of ‘We should all go sometime!’. One of my brilliant friends instead decided to give us all a serious case of auditory whiplash: ‘Did you know there’s a connection between house music and recessions?’
During periods of economic downturn, house music and clubbing surge in popularity. On its own, such a statement is predicated on an absurdity. Was my friend pulling my leg? Then I thought about it a little harder, brow crinkled and all. It’s true that clubbing is an especially popular activity, and it’s also true that the economy is a little beaten up right now. Not to mention music serves as a linchpin of culture, and there certainly exists an intersection between culture and economics. I was starting to see cartoon birds from all this rumination. Fortunately for my winded brain, another friend jumped in with a potential explanation: The anxieties caused by recessions cause the population to turn to positive forms of cultural expression as escapism, upbeat music being one of these outlets.
The argument was convincing, but I still wasn’t sold. In order to scratch that increasingly bothersome itch at the back of my mind, I had to get to the bottom of this claim.
Googling “house music and recessions” unsurprisingly gets you very few results. In fact, the first thing I could find was this tweet from @redseashawty with zero evidence to back its claim (in typical tweet fashion): “house/dance music is always popular when the recession is BIG and NASTY.”
Attacking the beast head on is an ill strategy; there must be a more clever method. Indeed, a better way to unravel this purported connection is to first understand how house music came to be.
“Born from the ashes of disco,” house music is a direct successor to the legendary disco movement. The late 70s brought forth a deluge of popularity for disco, with films such as Saturday Night Fever cementing the genre firmly in the eyes (and ears!) of a mainstream audience. A double-edged sword, a substantial anti-disco movement entered hot on the heels of its newfound fame, its apogee found in 1979 Chicago during what was called “Disco Demolition Night.” Lured by the sickly sweet promise of dirt cheap baseball tickets, 59,000 people, lead by vengeful DJ Steve Dahl, destroyed thousands of disco records and ultimately Comiskey Park itself. Disco plummeted off of the music charts following this incident, losing its popularity almost overnight.
Disco would not remain dead, however. It reincarnated into a new form: house music. DJs in the Chicago underground scene had already begun to pioneer innovative ways of remixing music, and disco’s precipitous demise forced them to wade into new waters. Commingled with the advent of new technology—synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers—a nascent sound started to take shape. The 80s saw increased accessibility to music production, allowing for characteristics, such as “tempo, deeper basslines, arpeggios, arrangement, the style of vocals, recognizable sounds from drum machines and synths” to define the sound of house music we know very well today. Following an initial diffusion to New York and Detroit, house music became an internationally recognized genre by the 90s, an era of globalization and unprecedented connection.
House music carries the remnants of a musical sound left behind in the dust of history, its proponents a vast network of DJs hidden safe from the scrutinous eyes of the mainstream music scene. It is no surprise that a connection exists between periods of financial duress and a resilient genre of music, considering the origins of the sound. Maybe house really does serve as an instrument of solace; perhaps people can attain a kind of peace, their consciousness drowning deep into the sea of pounding bass and frenzied rhythms.
A study published in the Journal of Cultural Economics argues that people prefer positive songs when unemployment is high. The paper argued for the existence of “initial evidence regarding use of cultural consumption to offset business cycle oscillations.” When a recession engulfs the economy, no element of everyday life is spared from its maws. A significant change in unemployment, income, and prices will drastically affect the choices individuals make. Interestingly, what is known as the “lipstick effect” is also observed, wherein “consumption increases due to a search for hedonic pleasure or mood regulation.” In tandem, the consumption of pleasurable, mood-boosting music increases, because consumption doesn’t exclusively refer to the purchasing of tangible goods—it can refer to the type of media and recreation you engage with, especially in a landscape where a rapidly growing group of individuals who define their identity within the bounds and extents of their consumption. The study collected data on popular songs throughout the years, the valence of each song, and their lyrics before then comparing this aggregation with the unemployment and inflation rates of the same years. As it turns out, when the economic situation worsens, people seek out more positive music—not just in tune, but also lyrics—to neutralize their circumstances. This is further corroborated by various sources. An NPR podcast notes how in 1980, when the unemployment rate was a whopping eight percent, the song dominating the charts was Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” described as a “snappy, infectious ditty.” A Medium blog notes how the average tempo of songs released in 2019 are significantly slower than those released in 2010, and we all know what happened only a few years prior!
The data seems to back my friends’ claims. Honestly, I’d take this rationale as it is, but I can’t yet brush aside the groan-inducing phrase “correlation does not equal causation.” Sure, people seem to seek out happier sounds when the world around them is falling apart, but then what? Music, like any other experience, has evolved into a unit of consumption. Songs, concerts, and nightclubs are commodities in one sense or another. They can be utilized as a means of mediating the relations between people and the predominant means of life. If the major music conglomerates are aware of consumers’ tendencies to gravitate towards uplifting songs and high-energy activity when experiencing financial difficulty, they can emphasize production of songs that fit this criterion in order to maintain an economic homeostasis. In other words, the correlation can be capitalized upon in order to keep consumers sated despite their condition, tranquilized by the intoxicating pleasure generated by dopamine-activating music.
However, unlike binge-watching several seasons of a show, music (especially house music) necessitates a far more active manner of consumption. Music also attracts a heterogenous base of consumers. Oftentimes, you will see a diverse group of concertgoers, ravers, or clubbers united solely by their shared enjoyment of the music. Through these two characteristics, the correlation between house music and recession can be steered in the opposite direction. Rather than bolster undiscerning passivity, it can be transmogrified—though still passive—into a kind of participation.
A 2010 study from the University of Bath argues for consumption as a form of passive political participation, with electronic music used as the primary example, claiming it fosters “community, sociality, pleasure, hedonism and freedom of expression.” Clubbing, raving, and partying involve a large number of people enclosed in a small venue, and are events that occur on a recurring basis, the interactions, events, and relations that arise emulate that of a properly sized community. This can establish a temporary sense of sovereignty and freedom typically unavailable in greater society, especially during economic crises. You drink, you dance, you douse yourself with the ecstasy of the collective joie de vivre, and at that moment you exist as an entirely separate being from the troubling realities of the external world. It may be self-contained, but it’s certainly a kind of freedom, a step up from the pleasure offered in more positive songs. In that seemingly reckless act of pleasure, you are able to circumvent the omnipresent decisions made in the favour of the current way of life—a way that accepts unemployment and financial struggle as part of the business cycle. It may seem small, insignificant, and even jejune, but in that moment of now, nestled within the tempo of the music, you’ve escaped.
