Whether rock’s early fury against the status quo, hip-hop’s raw reckonings with injustice, or EDM’s fleeting pockets of communal connection and release, each genre eventually drifts into the corporate orbit, where raw edges are sanded down into sleek products. Yet the co-optation is never total: even as big players tone down the politics and package rebellion into safe spectacle, stubborn threads of radical potential remain. Many artists keep pushing boundaries, listeners still seek meaning, and the original spark smolders in hidden corners—its energy always threatening to ignite something unexpected once again.