Concerns that the US economy can no longer innovate seem to be
trickling into the cultural realm. According to Grant McCracken
at the Harvard Business Review, some music critics are worried
that “innovation in popular music is in decline,” and that, “If
this is true, a big cultural change is upon us — the end of
popular music as the great lab bench for our culture, as the
defining innovator of our time.” But McCracken recognizes the
nostalgia that underlies such fears, and puts forth five ways in
which youth culture and pop music are actually changing the
boundaries of what those cultural concepts mean today: 1.
Contemporary musical forms like mashups are not a “barren
genre.” They are merely a new grammar, invented by cultural
innovators to express a new culture. 2. Originality is not so
much in decline as being revalued. 3. Young consumers are
interested in music produced by previous generations, but they
are using this music for their own purposes. 4. The new forms of
music are expressive of new forms of s