On the Death of a Common American Culture

The meaning of cultural fragmentation and political centralization

In the comments to my piece on developments in music, zinjanthropus writes: I think popularity and influence are really hard to measure in the streaming age. According to this the top selling album of 2021 was Drake's Certified Lover Boy — 613,000 units. Which, for someone who came of age in the 80s, is minuscule — Thriller sold 25 million copies in 1983. But if you look at how the 613,000 number was derived, it appears that it's mostly based on some very large number of streams — most of which are not paid for — equating to one “sale.” I have an Apple Music subscription, meaning I pay a…

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• Joshua Hou

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