The British music industry is aglow with the news that Olivia Rodrigo, the Disney-fied bard of adolescent angst, has selected her wedding song. The chosen track, a tremulous ballad about heartbreak, is expected to generate a surge in royalties. How very Roman.
We are witnessing the death rattle of a civilisation that worships sentimentality over substance. Rodrigo, a figurehead of emotional exhibitionism, represents the intellectual decadence of an age that prizes therapy-speak over stoicism. The Victorians, at least, had the decency to feign composure.
Now we parade our wounds for profit. The music industry’s triumphalism is a sign not of vitality but of terminal introspection. We are fiddling while Rome burns, but the fiddle is out of tune and the lyrics are about a teenage breakup.
