Has Hedonism Finally Come Back to Pop Music?

Words: Ruby Conway

It’s hard to say when exactly it began, but by the summer of 2024, a collective desire to revive dancing in dingy clubs and getting fucked up had exploded en-masse. Following on the chaotic heels of the indie sleaze revival, defined as ‘an organic, free-spirited time of not caring’ by Harper's Bazaar, Charli XCX dropped Brat, a kaleidoscope of chaotic party girl mentality and 2010s club culture. And it’s been more than a flash-in-the-pan moment: this summer, Charli’s reign has continued while Addison Rae’s debut album has similarly caused a storm. Her lore is also one of messiness and hedonism, dripping with nostalgia, as she dances like Britney, invoking the spirit of Spring Breakers with her colourfully Victoria’s Secret-clad shows. 

Through sound and carefully curated visuals, both artists clearly invoke the hedonism, club-party spirit, and celebrity culture of the noughties. It was “an era of slightly deranged hedonism,” Joe Muggs, eminent music journalist and author, who has been following club and music culture for more than two decades, tells me. “Underground and overground were meshed together”, he continues. “There were all these kinds of new drugs coming in.” Subcultures became digitalised and more mainstream, chaos scaled up. 

Now, in a decade defined by a cost-of-living crisis, dwindling nightlife, optimisation culture, and social isolation, hedonism becomes recontextualised into something radical. Once normalised, getting wrecked is now alternative. “There's a return to it being a subculture almost,” says Muggs. Drugs are clearly part of Charli’s oeuvre - “Shall we do a little key? Shall we have a little line?” she asks on 365. Lorde sings of substances in her new album Virgin too: “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up,” reads one lyric on her single “What Was That”. 
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Meanwhile, smoking is a motif of the Addison aesthetic: for Petra Collins clothing label ‘I’m Sorry’, a lit cigarette is poised between her toes; in the Aquamarine music video, she smokes two cigarettes at once; in ‘Headphones On’, she sings “need a cigarette to make me feel better.” An indulgent act that was once very standard now feels transgressive. In an era of optimisation and appetite suppression – weight loss drugs, mass sobriety, and gym culture endemic – this re-glamorisation of substances is a clear rebuttal against the wellness zeitgeist. It’s about indulging in your sensory desires, doing what feels good, and living in the moment. 

“This re-glamorisation of substances is a clear rebuttal against the wellness zeitgeist. It’s about indulging in your sensory desires, doing what feels good, and living in the moment.”

Beyond substances, themes that repeatedly surface in these albums under the hedonism umbrella are money and fame. “But money's not coming with me to Heaven. And I have a lot of it. So, can't a girl just have fun?” sings Addison in “Money Is Everything.” “High Fashion” too is about material indulgence: ‘You know I'm not an easy fuck / But when it comes to shoes I'll be a slut’. The sentiment is unapologetically splashy, material and garish even, modesty cast aside. The slant is the same – it’s about dismissing consequences and satisfying one’s immediate pleasures and urges.

This attitude is somewhat infectious. The sounds and lyrics of Rae’s self-titled Addison and Brat do something to me. They invoke those nights out when time slips away, worries dissolve, and you feel a bit invincible. Consequences cease to matter, as you chain smoke and dance freely, the self-contained, calm persona of day-to-day life dropped. It’s about being hot and messy and not caring.  

This music shift is being referred to as a ‘fuck-it moment’ as Joe Muggs tells me. “For Gen-Z, it's like: ‘we're never going to own anything. The world's burning. We will never have property’”. In other words, we’re exhausted and burnt out from carrying the weight of being young today. Gen Zers and younger Gen Alphas report a higher level of stress than any other generation. Harking back to this period of noughties music and clubbing, where going out was cheap, easy and social-media free, holds huge appeal. We’re nostalgic for a period of youth we never got to experience.

This strain of music has also been widely referenced as ‘recession pop’. When things are about to collapse, we dance and dissolve in the chaos, because what else is there to do?

We flock to this image of Dionysianism like moths to a flame, but is it more phantom than reality? In our hyper-capitalist, cost-of-living reality, such nights out, or such a hedonistic sensibility, are hard to grasp in actuality. While we clearly dream of partying and lucid states, the stats don’t align. Portman Group's 2023 annual survey with YouGov suggested 39% of 18 to 24-year-olds don't drink alcohol at all. Meanwhile, according to a Keep Hush survey, only 25% of Gen Zers are interested in going ‘out out’, with 68% of young people having ceased going out so much as a result of the current economic climate, according to a study by the Night Time Industries Association. “Statistically, they're not all kind of instantly going out and getting on kilos of ket, but the desire for it is definitely there,” adds Muggs.

“When things are about to collapse, we dance and dissolve in the chaos, because what else is there to do?”

Expressing desire through music is important, particularly in times of permacrisis. It offers us a way to live vicariously and to yearn for more, providing escapism. But Muggs adds that the disconnect between music and reality has “always been the case to a degree. I mean, not everyone who bought Oasis records was out hammering cocaine, not everyone who bought the Prodigy was out doing pills every weekend.” Music often offers routes to alternative lives and realities, invoking freedom without necessarily bestowing it. 

And perhaps there’s a route where hedonism, raving, and partying become democratised once more. “I think more and more we're going to see people remembering that hedonism doesn't have to mean looking glamorously wasted,” says Joe. “It's not necessarily just Charli surrounded by colourful characters, or Kate Moss, or Paris Hilton.” Hopefully, hedonism can become a reality and a choice to make, rather than a dream, for the rest of us.