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» Nostalgia on Repeat

grantland.com · 2,825 words · saved by 1 readers

Certain problems never disappear. Sometimes that’s because there’s no solution to whatever the problem is. But just as often, it’s because the problem isn’t problematic; the so-called “problem” is just an inexact, unresolved phenomenon two reasonable people can consistently disagree over. The “nostalgia problem” fits in this class: Every so often (like right now), people interested in culture become semifixated on a soft debate over the merits or dangers of nostalgia (as it applies to art, and particularly to pop music). The dispute resurfaces every time a new generation attains a social position that’s both dominant and insecure; I suppose if this ever stopped, we’d be nostalgic for the time when it still periodically mattered to people. The highest-profile current example is the book Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, written by the British writer Simon Reynolds (almost certainly the smartest guy to ever earnestly think about Death in Vegas for more than 4½ minutes)

Facebook Twitter Print C ertain problems never disappear. Sometimes that’s because there’s no solution to whatever the problem is. But just as often, it’s because the problem isn’t problematic ; the so-called “problem” is just an inexact, unresolved phenomenon two reasonable people can consistently disagree over. The “nostalgia problem” fits in this class: Every so often (like right now), people interested in culture become semifixated on a soft debate over the merits or dangers of nostalgia (as it applies to art, and particularly to pop music).

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