Results for “manufactured happiness”

Songs

R.E.M.

A bubblegum-bright chorus of togetherness repeated to the point of hollowness, this is R.E.M. at its most deliberately…

manufactured happiness conformity propaganda and slogans

Stevie Wonder

A deceptively simple birthday singalong that Stevie Wonder uses as a political vehicle, campaigning for a U.S. national holiday…

civil rights memory collective celebration as protest racial justice and equality

Florence + the Machine

A song about being ambushed by joy rather than sorrow, treating happiness itself as a violent, destabilizing force that a woman…

fear of happiness emotional avoidance release and surrender

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire turns the ABBA-adjacent disco hook into an inventory of surfeit: a world so saturated with information, content, and…

information overload consumerism emotional numbness

Mariah Carey

This is Mariah Carey's 1994 cover of the Phil Spector/Ellie Greenwich/Jeff Barry classic, reworked as a Wall-of-Sound production…

loneliness during celebration longing and absence nostalgia for past happiness

The Pretenders

A meditation on loss disguised as protest, the song uses the image of a chain gang to describe how impersonal forces — media,…

loss and separation nostalgia powerlessness against institutions

Wu‐Tang Clan

Two verses from Raekwon and Inspectah Deck lay out parallel autobiographies of poverty, hustling, and incarceration in…

economic desperation and survival the school-to-prison pipeline urban poverty in New York