Adorno Popular Music

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This essay will be discussing Theodor W. Adorno’s critiques of popular music and examine the extent of whether or not his criticisms are accurate to contemporary music. A range of issues will be discussed in the essay to explore the subject matter. Through research, there will be relevant quotes and theories to support the views of this particular topic.

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69) was a German philosopher and one of the leading members of the Frankfurt School (YourDictionary 2010). He and with the assistance of George Simpson, critically analysed the culture industry and popular music, in On Popular Music, writing how the way popular music is constructed and perceived to have its effect on the listeners.

In his essay, On Popular Music, Adorno begins by suggesting that there are ‘two spheres of music’ as he illustrates the difference between ‘serious’ music and ‘popular’ music (2009, p63). He writes that popular music can be characterised by its difference to serious music by stating:

"A clear judgment concerning the relation of serious music to popular music can be arrived at only by strict attention to the fundamental characteristic of popular music: standardization." (Adorno 1941)

Standardisation is one of the three specific ways that popular music is transliterated to its audience, according to Adorno. This technique, as Adorno points out, is where one successful song becomes interchanged with another, which ‘extends from the most general features to the most specific ones’ (Adorno 1941). He states that the structure of popular music is standardised, from the structure of the chorus, to the harmonic progressions and melodic range. He suggests that popular music follows a set of rules and schemes given, in order for the ...

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...nscious ‘fascist conspiracy’. Golding demonstrates by citing Phil Slater (1977) as he states that the manipulation is guided by the same blind economic determinism as that of capitalist societies as a whole.

To conclude, the accuracy of Adorno’s criticisms of contemporary music is arguable as there are some of his claims that can be applied to today’s music culture. His arguments have strengths and weaknesses of popular music production to the masses. However, the writers note the change of ‘popular’ music and with the evidence of the music records sale figures from Frith, the culture industry is not as manipulative as Adorno makes it to be. Although, the several writers highlights the flaws of Adorno’s claims, it does shows with contemporary music today that the culture industry follows pseudo-individualism in order to create music for what the consumer needs.

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