Is Recession Pop Back?

This piece originally appeared on May 1, 2025 in Sound Signal, our biweekly newsletter that identifies emerging artists, scenes, and trending tracks, crafted by the world's best writers and curators. Sign up here to never miss our take on what's next in music.

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In times of economic crisis, many turn to escapism. Some anxiously await the newest Nintendo console while others literally leave this planet, but for many, music is a tool that gets us through our hardest moments. It’s clear that the effects of the 2008 recession still loom over the minds of culture, as the April 2nd stock market crash caused Google searches for “recession pop” to spike as well. Covering a period of roughly 2007 to 2009, recession pop, coined at the time by the Irish Independent, distills an era where the radio was dominated by fast BPMs, big hooks, and hedonistic party vibes, all in the service of forgetting your troubles.

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Many favorites from the late 2000s pop charts have marked their return in the past few months, such as Lady Gaga with her new album Mayhem, a return to form that some have described as “reheated nachos.” Single “Abracadabra” compares to “Bad Romance” with its dark dance energy, which fans have been bumping to the tune of 284M streams on Spotify. Gaga’s headlining set at the first night of Coachella fed into the recession theme as well, celebrating hits from her back catalogue with the tagline “dance or die.”

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Kesha released “YIPEE-KI-YAY” on March 27 with the aid of Auto-Tune icon T-Pain, and just a day later, TikTok user @chelsieashley_ posted a video of dancing to the track with the caption, “Recession Pop Is So Back!!!” The song has now been used in 14.5K videos and includes lyrics about “a two-for-one at the Dollar Tree” and cheap liquor. Comparisons of the new song to Kesha’s breakout hit from 2009, “TiK ToK,” are not unfounded, as it resembles the famous lyric “ain't got no money in my pocket, but I'm already here.”

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Gen Z was only in elementary school when Gaga and Kesha first hit the airwaves, and are now facing economic uncertainty for the first time as adults. Millennials, on the other hand, remember the struggle of the 2008 recession and find the music of the time nostalgic. Pop music is always a tool of escapism, but taking cues from recession pop specifically is a reminder, or maybe even a comfort, that we will get through hard times again.