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In Season 6, Episode 15 of The Sopranos, Tony and Paulie find themselves on a casual trip to Miami as a precaution to duck an indictment. This finds them at a restaurant table in a nice restaurant, a couple women—who are much younger than them—talking about the old days, it’s clear these girls couldn’t give a fuck about whatever they’re saying and Tony eventually displays his distaste in the conversational direction: “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.” With a smirk, he leaves the table with one of the girls.

Sometimes (actually, a lot of the time), I feel like that in the current state of pop culture. Just a bunch of nodding heads saying: “Remember when Ghostbusters came out? Remember when 80s music had a lot of synths? Remember when The Neptunes were cool?” There aren’t many Tony Sopranos to shut everyone up. There are a bunch of Paulies yapping their heads off. (I mean this figuratively. The prospect of multiple Tony Siricos talking doesn’t sound too bad.)

Not every reference to the past is bad. The Holdovers (2023) pretty much one-to-one apes 70s dramedy style and structure pioneered by Mike Nichols and Hal Ashby to great success; it’s rather tasteful in that too. Playboi Carti’s new album MUSIC is more backwards-looking than ever for the artist, as he draws from 2000s mixtape culture, beats that could house the likes of Jeezy and T.I. (“RADAR” and “WALK” just scream Trap or Die era Jeezy to me) as well as DJ Swamp Izzo tagging almost every song with intrusive and loud (SWAMP-) adlibs but it works despite not necessarily being original in the same way The Holdovers does. Why is that?

The pure hint of the past isn’t something that should be avoided. If one is to resurrect and bring in feelings of nostalgia, though, there must be an element of reinterpretation so strong that it works 

independently of that reference. Take “OPM BABI” off MUSIC, which is so drenched in 2020s underground rap culture with the high pitched vocal inflections and sporadic flows over a distorted bassline turned up to 10,000, it could easily fall into whatever Carti’s peers/sons are doing, but the interrupting loud rifle sounds and Swamp Izzo tags bring it to a level of the past and the future synthesising into one unique experience.

The late cultural critic Mark Fisher often talks about the idea of a “lost future,” a generation of people who have nothing to look forward to due to their economic conditions, a right wing shift in politics and neo-liberalism running amok, wanting to “bring back the good times of the past” more than anything, no matter how objectively terrible it was. 

I’m basically saying if more people were able to get onto the property ladder, we wouldn’t spend over five years arguing about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. When people aren’t given the opportunity to mature, how can taste mature? How can the new have a chance when we’re surrounded by the old?

 I am 25 years old, I still live with my parents. I’m very excited to see Tom Cruise do stunts in his 60s and I won’t be ashamed.