I've been sitting with this for a while. Empowering songs in the early 10s felt like an event and had cultural weight with songs like Born This Way, Firework, and Sara Bareilles' Brave. Nowadays nobody bats an eye to those kind of songs, and residents like Ava Max and Katy Perry keep releasing cheap knock-offs over and over to recapture that magic (Woman's World, Lovin Myself, Kill It Queen, So I'm I) when all they do is beat a dead horse so what's not working? Are they the culprits of the decay of this theme? Or is it a reflection of the polarizing and political times we're in?

Fight Song singlehandedly crashed and burned the genre

In the 2020s where the middle class is disappearing no one wants a rich gorgeous out-of-touch person who cannot relate to them much that they're a fighter, brave, on your level and relate to your struggles

Break My Soul is an empowering song

Nothing to feel powerful about unless you're a straight white man nowadays

Trump

Also, the Trump presidency has totally destroyed optimism in not only the US but other parts of the world. People today have very little hope for the future. These types of songs just don't appeal to people anymore who aren't as optimistic that things will get better for them or they should keep fighting. People are DEFEATED. These songs did well in the Obama era for a reason.

ME HEE HEEEE killed the genre

13 minutes ago, Faded said:

Break My Soul is an empowering song

Empowered me to turn the music off

Anyway, most of those songs are cringe or too vague and also this

15 minutes ago, Just a Gay on ATRL said:

In the 2020s where the middle class is disappearing no one wants a rich gorgeous out-of-touch person who cannot relate to them much that they're a fighter, brave, on your level and relate to your struggles

we realised we hate outselves

Hell yeah dude, let's bring back zionist apolitical rich people on ozempic and a team of surgeons and hairdressers preaching about overcoming my problems and loving myself.

I don't know but I'm thankful since they're almost always terrible

Lana ended them

was never going to survive the fall of lizzo smdh

I blame the far-right and Trumpism for that

Edited March 17Mar 17 by Princess Aurora

They never were so good in the first place.

turned me into a believer for 4 minutes

Literally Golden???

19 minutes ago, suburbannature said:

turned me into a believer for 4 minutes

Nobody does it better than Mariah

They were always corny, to be fair.

1 hour ago, Just a Gay on ATRL said:

In the 2020s where the middle class is disappearing no one wants a rich gorgeous out-of-touch person who cannot relate to them much that they're a fighter, brave, on your level and relate to your struggles

Also this. Trying to drop a 'I'm just like you regular people and I struggle too' song in this climate is tone deaf and just makes you look stupid. No, you're not like me.

The early 2010s was a verrrrrry different time. People were generally optimistic coming out of the recession, Obama, gay rights etc

11 minutes ago, formlessminutiae said:

Nobody does it better than Mariah

Especially this one live with the choir

It was always an atrocious, rainbow capitalism, white feminism, gross trend.

Lady Gaga did it right, if anyone, by making a strong political statement, and great pop music.

Aside from her... well... at least they tried.

10 minutes ago, Egon Schiele said:

It was always an atrocious, rainbow capitalism, white feminism, gross trend.

Lady Gaga did it right, if anyone, by making a strong political statement, and great pop music.

Aside from her... well... at least they tried.

Yeah, as far as 2010-now goes, they're almost always corny (Taylor, Katy). Even Bey and Lana had horrible attempts at motivational anthems and they typically have good political songs.

Ava Max's So Am I nuked the entire genre. Not even a good Kelly Clarkson bop or the quintessential P!nk soccer pop hymn could help the genre recover afterwards. So Am I was like Walmart's Hiroshima.