'Death of Uncool' Shuffle Mix

For this activity, I put my iPhone 'music' app on shuffle and recorded the first 20 songs that appeared as a result. The outcome was as follows;

1. 'Get Out Of My Head' - Redlight (Electronica)
2. 'Everything You Never Had (We Had It All) - Breach (Dance & House)
3. Murder to Excellence - Jay Z & Kanye West (Hip-Hop/Rap)
4. Getting Nowehere - Magnetic Man Ft. John Legend (Drum & Bass)
5. Upper Room - WZRD (Alternative)
6. La Bonita - Mellowhype (Hip-Hop/Rap)
7. Karmageddon - M.I.A (Electronic)
8. Library Pictures - Arctic Monkeys (Alternative)
9. Help Me Lose My Mind - Disclosure Ft. London Grammar (Punk)
10. Pink Matter - Frank Ocean Ft. André 3000 (Pop)
11. No Exit - Childish Gambino (Rap)
12. Drunk In Love - Beyoncé Ft. Jay Z (Pop)
13. Going Through Hell - The Streets (Pop)
14. The Mood - Kid Cudi (Rap)
15. Everybody's Something - Chance The Rapper Ft. Saba & BJ The Chicago Kid (Acid Rap)
16. Heart Skipped a Beat - The XX (Indie Rock)
17. Gripp - George Maple & Kilo Kish & Kwes (Electronic)
18. Windows - N.E.R.D (Hip-Hop/Rap)
19. Nosetalgia - Pusha T Ft. Kendrick Lamar (Hip-Hop/Rap)
20. Drop the Game - Flume & Chet Faker (Electronic)

My 'death of uncool' shuffle mix holds a postmodern meaning because of the variety of genres that appear in the playlist - these genres include electronic, dance, house, hip-hop, rap, alternative, punk, pop, acid rap, and indie rock. This suggests that my music taste holds no distinct style or trend, which would have been the case in a past mix, instead it includes a mixture of genres, styles, and trends, which I have been exposed to and have liked as a result. This mix encapsulates the theory of 'the death of uncool', as people have unlimited access to various music and are free to have the opinion of what they will and won't listen to. 

"There are just too many styles around" - To stick to one style of music or to follow only the 'popular' music genre of the time would be a next to impossible task. Therefore, this mixture of genres and styles creates a postmodern meaning behind my shuffle mix.

'The Death of Uncool'

Brian Eno - 25th November, 2009.

"It's odd to think back on the time - not so long ago - when there were distinct stylistic trends, such as "this season's colour" or "abstract expressionism" or "psychedelic music". It seems we don't think like that anymore. There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.

We're living in a stylistic tropics. There's a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don't have the same localised stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It's all alive, all "now", in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it's old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources - cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them - it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political, and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life."