Back in 2008, a then fresh and iconic Lady Gaga encouraged all of us (at the time) young millennials to “Just dance; it’ll be ok.” It was a message we desperately needed to hear. When Gaga’s song first appeared, the Great Recession was still hanging over the country like a mushroom cloud. Jobs were scarce. Pop music that encouraged young people to let go and let loose in the face of such uncertainty resonated more than they likely wouldn’t have otherwise.

This “recession pop” era remains near and dear to my heart. It reminds me of a time when my back didn’t hurt quite as much, and my arms still stayed wedged firmly in their respective sockets. These songs were also the sonic landscape through which I moved during a difficult but also wonderful time in my life. Because of that, I wanted to write something that honored that weird, fleeting moment in American music. Specifically, I wanted to highlight Zedd’s 2015 Beautiful Now featuring Jon Bellion and explain why it’s one of the genre’s greatest entries.

If you’re still reading this and even know what the hell I’m talking about, it may seem strange to call Beautiful Now an important song. After all, its beginning feels totally rote. There is a seemingly lecherous narrator (Bellion) looking at someone wearing something with “nothing beneath it.” We must forgive him for “staring” though, because it’s the same thing as “breathing.” “Whatever is left of this moment,” you see, Bellion’s “not going to waste it.” That’s because “It won’t last forever,” so “Why try to fight it?”

Had LLMs been around in 2015 and were asked to spit out some recession pop, it probably would have sounded something like this. The last line of the tune’s opening in particular adheres to the thesis of many other works from the period. Basically, the argument is that we must let go of tomorrow and that the present is all we have. In Ke$ha’s 2012 Die Young, the singer repeatedly chants: “Let’s make the most of the night.” Then in 2013, the band Krewella released Live for the Night and echoed that notion, singing the titular line, “I live for the night,” again and again. A year later, Pit Bull put out his iconic song, Time of Our Lives, and said pretty the same thing, proclaiming, “Hey, let’s get it now!”

Like most pop music, these songs were aimed primarily at teenagers and young adults (at the time) like millennials, and they resonated with this demographic because the recession had exploded young people’s faith in the future. Earlier generations had believed that the basic structure of society was stable enough to build a long-term plan around. They happily invested in things like college and careers because of this certainty and took on potential liabilities like mortgages, marriages and broods of munchkins as a result. Millennials on the other hand largely never developed that confidence. They watched the recession destabilize countless lives and render efforts to engage with the existing system (such as by getting insanely expensive college degrees) largely useless.

But although they generally reflect the era’s zeitgeist, in the end, these artists’ exploration of the recession period is undeniably shallow. In their songs, letting go of the future leads people solely into nihilistic, self-destructive decadence. Krewella certainly expresses this sentiment. Living “for the night” until one is “free falling,” equals “tryna holla” and getting that “ink up on [your] colla.” Additionally, it implies stacking “drinks up high, skyscrapin’ ’til we talla.” Then, of course, there is Pitbull. Mr. Worldwide is going to “Have me a good time, before my time is up,” or so Time of Our Lives goes. All this really means, though, is that he’s going to “Pour it up, drink it up,” and, most disturbingly, “throw it up tonight.”

But probably no one personifies meaningless, recession-era excess more than Ke$ha. In Die Young, she describes how we’re all “going to die young.” And because of that, the “young punks, taking shots, strippin’ down to dirty socks” should “kiss [her] and “give [her] all [they’ve] got.” But even these lurid lyrics pale in comparison to another of her recession songs: Take it Off. In this bonkers number, she sings about going to a “place downtown where the freaks come around. [A] hole in the wall. [A] dirty free for all.” Once there, says Ke$ha, you must simply do one thing and one thing alone:

Lose your mind.
Lose it now.
Lose your clothes
In the crowd.
We’re delirious.
Tear it down
‘Til the sun comes back around.

It is on this point that Beautiful Now clearly differentiates itself from the recession pop pack. Here, letting go of the future doesn’t inexorably lead to a present of meaningless decadence. It instead is the very thing that gives the present meaning. “Let’s live tonight like fireflies!” Bellion cries halfway through the song, introducing this idea. Beautiful Now evokes fireflies because they only live about two weeks on average. Even still, their short lives are full of beauty and significance, where they “light up the sky” and “open the clouds” before it’s time to “pass the crown.” By living like them, the song seems to suggest, we become attuned to our own transitory nature. We are then motivated to build better lives in the here and now.

This more complex take represents the mentality many millennials actually adopted due to the recession. As the fallout set in, they focused on making their immediate circumstances as meaningful as possible. It was a far more sensible choice than hedging their bets on a future that looked increasingly in doubt. One of the many ways they did this is with their work, job hopping to ensure their careers aligned with their personal values.¹ This mentality is also evident in their consumerism, displaying a preference for temporary experiences over lasting material possessions.² They also did this with their volunteering, choosing organizations for their tangible impact rather than their institutional pedigree.^{3, 4} And, most importantly, this became their attitude toward marriages⁵ and child-rearing.⁶ Many would only take the plunge if such things were complimentary to their present-day lives rather than a begrudging obligation.

Of course, millennials are not a monolith. There were many who were relatively unaffected by the economic meltdown of ‘07 and built lives in the pre- rather than post-recession mold. Yet millions more did not, and Beautiful Now speaks to why. Rather than dwell on meaningless decadence in the face of an uncertain future like its contemporaries, Zedd and Bellion explore how said uncertainty fueled rather than removed meaning for countless young people. This makes the song a more complex, relevant piece of work that others of its type.

Given the time of its release, it also acts as the perfect capstone of the genre. Released a full seven years after the recession began, Beautiful Now appeared not just when its economic fallout was beginning to fade but also the music it inspired. Recession pop began to fade from the airways in the later 2010s as the culture moved on and musical mores shifted. Even still, there has been somewhat of a revival in recent years. Between the pandemic and AI, a new wave of economic destruction has now engulfed generations like Gen Z and Alpha, inspiring a revival of the recession pop sound. Perhaps one day, a new quintessential song will emerge and will speak to these generations’ efforts to move through it. That’s what millennials had with Beautiful Now, and unfortunately for our generational successors, it’s now time to pass the crown.

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1. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236474/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx
2. NOwnership, No Problem: Why Millennials Value Experiences Over Owning Things | by Blake Morgan | Medium
3. Millennial Volunteerism. It turns out, millennials aren’t as… | by Kelsey Luke | Unself | Medium
4. Volunteer Month: Strategies for Multigenerational Engagement | Association of Fundraising Professionals
5. Are Millennial Divorce Rates Lower than Previous Generations?
6. Millennials Are Having Fewer Babies. What Does This Mean For Retirement?