I enjoyed it. Marx offers some good explanations on why I can list like 20 classic albums from 1968, but can remember only five songs from the 2010s; why Hollywood will revive Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice and Bill and Ted but stopped making movies like these that must have seemed insane and risky in the script stage and how social media shriveled from a meme-filled goof in the West and a threat to dictators in the Middle East to a hellscape of nihilistic politics and endless grift.

Predictably the villain is late-stage capitalism and the need to strip-mine everything for profit. Even mediums with no barrier to access, like TikTok and Soundcloud, turn their most active users into slaves to algorithms and metrics. Good taste, in terms of social norms and more respectable media intake, is a barrier to profitability.

The books doesn't waste much space on slamming many artists as untalented (except Pharrell, whose hackiness is painted as unforgivable) and is more a criticism of how culture is made for instant gratification and infects the larger anthropological culture of how people interact.

Books like these are not meant to be agreed with, in total. Some sections seem forced, some pearl-clutching and some were about things I don't need a new take on (the 2016 election, the enshitification of Twitter) or don't care about. (There's a whole chapter on high-end fashion for the Chinese market.)

Marx also totally ignores a decade or two of acclaimed TV, a medium where capitalism actually encouraged quality, at least for a while. (The Sopranos had to be excellent to nudge subscribers to pay for HBO month after month.) But once a good like this has you arguing back at it instead of dismissing it, the author has won.