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You can think of it as a parallel for a lot of things: social class, wealth, education, politics, taste. Maybe even taste in music, if you want. When it comes to taste, we’re all amphibious: We can keep our feet in different places, enjoying different things. Get people talking together, though— put us in some sort of context— and you start noticing desires, sometimes collective ones. It’s never as simple as a particular sound or trend. But it can be a mood or sensibility you’re drawn to in lots of things— like the kind of glowy, stoned escapism you might get from chillwave, disco edits, breezy Scandinavian pop, woozy L.A. hip-hop, or any number of other places. Or a sudden craving for metal and noise or something that feels sick. Or the search for something “smarter,” or more aggressive, or more adult, or more political.
