Retrotalk: "There Is No Sound of the 2020s" versus "The Future Is Not Lost" versus "21st Century as Cultural Void?"

A flurry of recent debate on the topic of cultural stagnation versus "the future is alive and well actually!"Here's an interesting article by Gabriel Szatan at Resident Advisor from a few weeks agoIt starts with a electronic dance festival experience that feels blocked and static:But by some deadening alchemy, the sets smushed into a homogenous paste, largely indistinguishable in tempo and tone. From this, Szatan extrapolates to a general pervasive feeling of being stuck on a 7 out of 10 plateau, anxiously wondering when the distinctive and defining sound of the 2020s will surface: No matter the soundtrack, the feeling echoed: this is good, not great. The lightning-in-a-bottle effect that animates club culture seems to be in hibernation and it's not just hampering nights out, either. As of late, electronic releases seem to exist on this same endless plateau. We have more music to enjoy than ever, but what's increasingly nagging at me is that this overfamiliarity is actually the…