When the members of electronic duo LMFAO wrote “Party Rock Anthem,” they thought the song might set the tone for a wild night out.
“I wanted a song for when we walked into a party, so I thought, ‘Party rock in the house tonight/Everybody just have a good time,’” one-half of the duo, Redfoo, said. “The ‘just’ was key. I made it a command to focus people on what to do now that we’re here together.”
One of the song’s producers had originally written the lyrics a little differently. Instead of “Party rock in the house tonight,” the chorus went, “I can feel it in my soul tonight.”
“I felt like that was outdated, the word ‘soul’ in a song,” Redfoo explained. So, it became the “Party Rock Anthem.”
The song peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 during the summer of 2011. Less than six months later, LMFAO topped the charts again with the equally viral banger, “Sexy And I Know It.” The electronic duo split up that year, having made a brief but significant mark on pop culture.
Like many other pop phenomena at the beginning of the decade, LMFAO wanted to write bangers for parties and nightclubs. The duo didn’t know it was capturing the zeitgeist of the 2010s. During the past decade, singers from Katy Perry to Rihanna dominated the pop music scene, releasing single after single replaying the trope of the wild night out.
Perry may have blacked out “Last Friday Night” but she’s “pretty sure it ruled” anyway. No matter how many unflattering photos end up on the internet, whether she can replace her ripped party dress or what happens to the warrant out for her arrest, she swears “this Friday night” she’ll “do it all again.”
The tenor of pop music at the start of the decade was one of unbridled positivity. It was hedonistic and detached from reality, but it was fun. In 2011, the rapper Drake captured the spirit by popularizing the term “YOLO.” In “The Motto,” he sings, “You only live once: that’s the motto … YOLO.”
You only live once, and pop stars would assure you that no matter what was going on, it could all go away if you could go to the club and party like it was the last night of your life. In the Pitbull/Ne-Yo collaboration “Time of Our Lives,” Ne-Yo admits that he might not be able to pay his rent, but he’ll swing for a night out instead: “I knew my rent was gon’ be later ’bout a week ago/ I work my ass off/ But I still can’t pay it though/ But I got just enough/ To get off in this club/ Have me a good time, before my time is up.”
Five years after the song came out, one writer confesses that its lyrics still give her anxiety: “Ne-Yo sings these lyrics with a cheery insouciance, but without fail, they cause me to panic. I worry for the unnamed protagonist who seems to be making a profoundly irresponsible financial decision.”
But in the pop songs of the early 2010s, there is no morning after to face the consequences of one’s decisions the night before. There is only tonight (or tonight squared). While these songs seem oblivious to anything not already contained in their own ethos, Sia’s self-aware hit “Cheap Thrills” claims that not all partying costs rent money, and its use of “cheap” may have a double meaning. “I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight,” Sia sings. “I love cheap thrills!”
Other songs chipped away at the idea that the fabled Friday night was without its problems. Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s hit “Blurred Lines” may have been a chart-topper, but it also launched a conversation about consent and exploitation that its singers are still addressing to this day.
In the first week of the 2010s, the No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100 was another pop sensation: Kesha’s “TiK ToK.” When Kesha confessed to brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack and partying until the cops showed up, she promised: “The party don’t stop.” In fact, not only does the party continue, the next morning, you’ll wake up “feeling like P. Diddy.”
But her most recent hit, 2017’s “Praying,” plays a different tune. In it, she sings about forgiveness for the man who allegedly sexually assaulted her. The man, Dr. Luke, was her producer and mentor while she was releasing other songs — such as “Tik Tok.”
By 2018, the name Avicii had become synonymous with a certain type of buoyant pop song, including hits such as “Wake Me Up” and “The Nights.” Then the 28-year-old Swedish DJ shattered the illusion of his perfect life by committing suicide.
If singers in Los Angeles were slow to wise up to the inauthenticity of the LMFAO-style anthem, the younger generation was quick to catch on.
By 2013, Lorde had rocked the music scene with “Royals,” an ode to teenage rebellion, but not in the way you’d think. The 16-year-old New Zealander had no use for jet planes, gold teeth, and Grey Goose vodka: “That kind of lux just ain’t for us/ We crave a different kind of buzz.”
“I’m kind of over gettin’ told to throw my hands up in the air,” she sings on “Team.” “So, there.”
The tenor of pop got darker as the 2010s progressed, and over the past 10 years, lyrical references to “hate” have shot up, according to a recent analysis.
Rapper Post Malone, a 2015 breakout star at age 19, was already disillusioned by the music industry two years later. In “rockstar,” he sings that he’s been “f—in’ hoes” and “poppin’ pillies,” but the somber melody hints that the “rockstar” lifestyle isn’t everything he might have dreamed.
With “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” released earlier this year, the pop star resigns himself: “We’re running out of reasons, but we can’t let go/ Yeah, Hollywood is bleeding, but we call it home.”
Even Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, former Disney stars who have found success with a more bubblegum style of pop, have opened up about their struggles: Lovato sings about her drug addiction in “Sober,” admitting, “I’m dying inside.” Gomez has evolved from celebrating a dysfunctional relationship in “Heart Wants What It Wants” to prioritizing her own mental health in “Lose You to Love Me.”
The past few years have seen many singers, especially younger ones, rejecting the idea that pop music must only peddle a false sense of reality. While the songs at the beginning of the decade were overwhelmingly marked by a buoyant, if shortsighted, sense of optimism, the hits of the past few years feel cynical, or perhaps just more grown-up.
Seventeen-year-old Billie Eilish, Lorde’s more macabre successor, sings of desperation and despair in “when the party’s over,” explaining, “Quiet when I’m coming home and I’m on my own.” At the end of the decade, the party is over. And rather than brushing our teeth with a bottle of Jack, we’re waking up hungover — and alone. Now, pop stars are just more honest about what was happening all along.
