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Has Being Famous Become Intolerable?
Perhaps, what makes modern-day celebrity especially insufferable is something, ironically, rather relatable…
It’s no secret that mainstream music has become darker and mellower in recent years; the most significant, and hugely popular, debut album of the 2010s — Billie Eilish’s ‘When We All Fall Asleep…’ — was filled with tales of toxic relationships, drug addiction, death and suicidal ideation. Meanwhile, the hoards of rising-star indie artists knocking on the doors of the mainstream, are taking their music to even darker and more daring places; bedroom pop pioneer Clairo is singing of ringing suicide hotlines, while Phoebe Bridgers writes about taboo topics — murder, illness, faithlessness and even the death of Eric Clapton’s child — without so much as flinching.
As many have already pointed out, much of this change in tone can be attributed to the record levels of depression and anxiety among Gen-Z; as well as the generations nonchalant attitudes about talking about such things:- references to “taking a xanny” are so common in music now, that they’re often greeted with little more than an eye roll.
But recently, some of pop’s biggest and most promising stars from the last decade have being writing less so from a generalized sense of teenage angst and…
