The algorithm has given us an account of what the public debate on crime, sexuality, pleasure, consumerism and drugs will be about in 2023, but the zeitgeist is one of anxiety. It’s all a confusion, or would a quiz solve it better? This is all a play of wisdom, for hedonism is the secret expression of sadness. “Sad” is the word most searched for by Gen Z Spotify eyes (most visited by thirteenth century eyes). millennials)”, information from the company was announced in August streamingwhich filled in the data to run the list of named plays Summer bummerhere with “music that makes you feel good when you’re sad”: Lorde, Frank Ocean, Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, Lana Del Rey (who gives the list its title to one of her songs) and Billie Eilish appear in the cabecera de list that follows Spotify now looks like “indie pop, sad rap th sad cierreño” (for a genre adapting regional music of Northern Mexico).
Okay: actually Most featured artist on the list: Radiohead th Summer bummer This is just a big list of many that Spotify has created (no users, but the company itself) with titles like Sad Crying Mix, Sad Indie, Sad 80s, Sad 2023 or Sad Bunny;(here with Bad Bunny songs).
Ted Gioia, a musicologist I know from books Jazz history th Delta blues (both edited by Turner), he published an article on his blog explaining the algorithm. First: the percentage of songs of the highest pitch (more confidently progressed and supposedly fun) that pegged them at number one on the Billboard list in 1961 was 85%. In the 21st century, this percentage was systematically below 50%. Next up: The average beat of songs on the Hot 100 over the past 10 years has gone from 131 beats per minute to 116 (the offensive word Spotify is using for this campaign, if you mean songs with a frequency of 60 or 70 beats per minute, then how is the heart at rest). Gioia added an interesting interpretation to these numbers: a slow song that 50 years ago was, in fact, a product created for baile, now it is written for single listening, for ensimism. How many does Nadi Bayla catch?
Now there is a temptation to project this unexpected discovery into other artistic languages. “A perfect example of this paradox is euphoria,” says Jorge Martínez Lucena, a professor at the Abat Olib CEU University in Barcelona and the author of essays on topics such as The wire th Black mirror. “In Euphoria, the key is in the voice of narrator Ryu, who In the description table, mark all the sides and all the sex we see in each episode.. Rue sounds cynical, but in the end, everything she says is based on the truth. Ryu continues to believe that we all deserve something better. And, of course, you know that something better does not follow the path of easy pleasure that keeps it going all the time. The world is marked by a lack of affection and feeling, ephemeral and boring satisfaction, but the characters in Euphoria are something beautiful.”
En Euphoria looks very clearly identified opening party theme like melancholyDespite the hype, the technology and chaotic sexual encounters are a marvel that was 16 years in the making, but which also contains a reserve of moral nobility. This model is available in all parts and each version has small numbers. For example this Self-defenseabout Belen Barenis and Berta Prieto, this is a revelation political matiz because celebration is a form of rebellion, and the sadness that appears in the background is a consequence of the working-class and loving pessimism in which its protagonists live.
Self-defense It’s at one end of the arc. In another they would be “las dystopian stories related to teen narratives, which is a very modern genre.“and this brings teenagers into dialogue with the horizon of ‘no future’,” explains Maria-José Masanet, professor at the University of Barcelona. In the middle “protected sadness” of thousands of queda novels young people and its film adaptation with the participation of Netflix as a specialized distributor: 13 reasons to love you, Heartstopper, Eltiempo que te doy, Selftape…Included Elite conveys the depth of the mother’s despair that I describe.
“Nowadays how melancholy is kindled in art. Previously, the theme of sadness was discovered by making incursions into adult literature, among father’s books.“, explains Javier Ruescas, author of 22 children’s and fantasy novels published since 2009. “Now the publishing industry is offering relief from melancholy to young readers, and that’s what they’re thinking about.”
But he does this with the caution of an adult who sets the rules on his child’s bicycle: “Depressive beauty exists today as much as it has since Goethe wrote it. El young Werther in the 18th century. For example, personality Crepusculo it was a depressing view of a lifetime. The difference is that in 2023, the authors are looking for a psychologist to help them and express their emotions.” The sadness of young adult fiction is thus “protected sadness.”
“Yo wee Crepusculo before I was depressed, and I guess it will seem more stupid to me now than when I see it. Yes, that is right If I’m here with a Nirvana song, I’ll listen to it now with other people.. But it seems good to me that sadness is treated naturally in art. This is part of reality. There are people who are sad and sad,” explains Almudena Sanchez, the book’s author. Medicine (Random House, 2021). “This book was the opposite of the romantic vision of illness: it was a book that looked at science and medicine in a literary way, and I think it was also very modern.”
A “contemporary” is also someone who asks you to say that he is modern: “Never has a reader written to me to say that you found one of my novels so sad that he praised you. On the contrary, the lowest novels attract readers best,” continues Javier Ruescas, recalling the case of the series. Boulevard, de Flor M. Salvador. “If you look online, the comments from readers revolve around a very sad scene. “Has this page been read?” This is a sentence that appears everywhere on the forum and evokes a pleasant feeling.”
In the background, everything is very natural, very organic, as the old-timers say: modern children’s fiction, written or filmed, has brought back the esques of romantic literature and applied them to the suffering of teenagers. “You hear this all the time as a teenager.”“,” says Ruescas. “It seems that youth was the opposite of sadness, chaos and mental illness, when the reality is that all the themes of teen literature are very close to pain: the discovery of sexuality, the loss of childhood, conflict with fathers. , responsibility for responsibility…” added Maria José Masanet. And all this added to the modern obsession with identity and taste for testimonial stories based on life and resilience: relationships with learning, homophobia, mental illness…
“Mental health has become a kind of fetish of our time, two words that become unacceptable to the person who utters them” says writer and thinker Alberto Olmos, author of the recent book Good luck. “Cristina Pedroce is insulted in social circles by the bells of Nocevieja and she responds that she is leaving temporarily to take care of her mental health. What I’m really interested in is, ‘Oh yeah,’ but that won’t protect me the same way.” Olmos suggests that deep down there is a taste for it. sadness is a form of narcissism that fits well with modern world culture..
Many of Olmos’s texts are filled with references to the 90s of the twentieth century, the decade of his youth and the first twenty years of his life. Depressive era Nirvana, Mazzy Star, My personal Idaho and de la Mouille euphoric Kate Moss. “For me, it coincided with my tenth birthday at 20. And for me it was the era of David Foster Wallace,” says Jorge Martinez Lucena, referring to the author Infinite Brominethe most accomplished writer of his generation I now attribute this despicable and moral voice to Ryu.. “I think the difference between the 90s and 2023 is that the offer of dopamine today is easy in every way, it is offered to teenagers as a quick fix to their suffering, even if it is a greater source of more suffering.”
Martínez Lucena gives the example of social reds and TikTok in particular, as the great savior of ephemeral and exciting happiness, sad happiness. After all, what is Tik Tok, such a big party where people dance and party, but there is a deep feeling of sadness?