A combination of factors created the perfect conditions for the proliferation of a new kind of pop in the aftermath of. Euphoric in tone and orientated towards the dance floor, post-pandemic pop is nostalgic for 80s sounds and unconcerned with lyrical complexity. Within the mainstream, this has been characterised by artists like Miley Cyrus, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, and The Weeknd, whose sounds have been both evocative of late 20th-century styles and exultant in tone. Exemplary of this is Cyrus’s reworking of Stevie Nick’s ‘Edge of Seventeen’ (1981) on ‘Edge of Midnight’ (2020), which combines the Fleetwood Mac singer’s solo hit with her own ‘Midnight Sky’ (2020). As Erica Gonzales points out in Harper’s Bazaar: ‘It's a perfect pairing, considering ‘Midnight Sky’ interpolates Nicks's famous song to begin with’ (Gonzales 2020). However, it was The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, which really set the tone.
‘Blinding Lights’ was released on 29th November 2019 and was the first track to spend a whole year in the US Top 10, becoming the most streamed song on Spotify in December 2022. The composition channels new wave and synth-pop; and is in part a homage to the sounds of Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. Speaking to Billboard magazine, Abel Tesfaye cited the influence of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002): ‘GTA: Vice City really opened my eyes to a lot of ’80s music, so there was a nostalgia for when I was a kid playing video games’ (Tesfaye cited by Mamo 2021). Comparisons were also drawn with Rod Stewart’s ‘Young Turks’ (1981), and A-Ha’s ‘Take on Me’ (1985). Both are around 170 BPM, with synth-heavy hooks, and euphoric melodies. They are also characterised by short, undecorated vocal phrases, which adhere to speech rhythms and an absence of chords in the mid-range.
Channelling the vernacular of 80s pop, The Weeknd’s hit spawned several imitators. Most notably Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’ (2022). Sweeter in its register, the main melody oscillates between two pitches, with no dramatic leaps and an emphasis on storytelling. The song topped the charts in 45 territories, spending 15 weeks at No.1 in the US, becoming the longest tenure at the top by a British artist. Writing in The Guardian, Ben Beaumont-Thomas observed numerous similarities:
This is an extremely high-tempo song, and an obvious point of comparison is The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, which also ticks along at 175bpm and has the same sort of earworm instrumental motif... And Styles’s climactic “hey!” is very similar to The Weeknd’s own exclamation to round out ‘Blinding Lights’ chorus.
Not to be outdone, the baton then passed to veteran songwriter Diane Warren with ‘Big Big Love’ (2023) a composition for original 80s-star Belinda Carlisle. Writing in the I, Nick Levine described the track’s resemblance to ‘Blinding Lights’ as a ‘full circle moment’ given ‘modern pop’s 80s fixation’ and the fact ‘Carlisle was there the first time around’ (Levine 2022). Indeed, the song echoes her breakthrough US solo smash ‘Mad About You’ (1986). While it didn’t have quite the same impact as Styles or the Weeknd, like Stevie Nicks and Kate Bush, Carlisle’s renaissance was indeed a sign of times. It is possible to read the nostalgic elements of post-pandemic pop as characteristic of what Zygmunt Bauman has described as ‘retrotopia’ (Bauman 2017): where an imagined past becomes a source of inspiration. However, this is only half the story. The pandemic also facilitated creativity and generated hope.
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