Adorno Is Right... And Wrong

 We're all way too familiar with Theodor "Fun Sponge" Adorno (pictured right) at this point. According to His Eminence, if we're not listening to six-part Bach Inventions on our morning commute we are mindless drones enslaved to the sinister culture industry. Clearly, Adorno is just another old guy with a distaste for new ideas. Unfortunately, I don't think this is entirely true. 

Adorno argues that popular music is a low-class jumble of recycled, generic material. To him, all popular music is made from a standardized mold hat makes it digestible to a fault. The listener doesn't need to exert any effort to enjoy a popular music composition. He says, 

"The composition hears for the listener. This is how popular music divests the listener of his spontaneity and promotes conditioned reflexes. Not only docs it not require his effort to follow its concrete stream; it actually gives him models under which anything concrete still remaining may be subsumed." 

I think Adorno makes some good arguments here. There have certainly been many times in my life that I heard a song on the radio that I considered absolutely lifeless. One example is this song by Ylvis called "What Does The Fox Say?" While this song certainly has some comedic value, it's not helping the listener improve themselves in any way. To Adorno, that is simply unacceptable. 

The example in the slides of the "Four-Chord Song" all but proves that certain chord progressions and styles of songwriting are replicated over and over again. I also believe that as streaming services become more prevalent, musicians are being encouraged to create shorter songs and albums. Audiences are being conditioned to expect and respond to a certain type of music. 

I don't want to pick on Adorno too much, because I think it takes a lot of guts to tell the whole world their taste in music sucks. However, I think Adorno is missing some key points about popular music. 

Firstly, I think his idea that edification is the only form of cultural value is just plain wrong. I believe there are many different types of cultural value, and entertainment value is a completely valid example. Even the "Fox Say" song has some educational value for a young child. Hopefully that's enough to satisfy Adorno's elitist views. 

Secondly, I think that the intricacies of music theory and music production are something that Adorno isn't factoring in. Many songs seem simple at first glance, but are actually made with great care and attention to detail. Consider "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys. While it might sound at surface level like a somewhat pop composition, Brian Wilson is actually challenging the listener by including lots of atypical sounds and harmonies. 

Finally, I think while it's true that some popular music is highly generic, there are other artists that operate far outside the norm, and are celebrated for doing so! I mentioned earlier how streaming services like Spotify are encouraging the streamlining of new music to make it more palatable to a large amount of people. The positive side of a large library of music is that there are many artists trying to differentiate themselves and break whatever formula the listener expects. Here's an example of a "weird" artist that have found a lot of success collaborating with Anderson .Paak and even performing on NPR's Tiny Desk series. 

I saw another student in this class write about Kendrick Lamar. The fact that Kendrick is winning over more traditional and formulaic is proof that in the proving ground of culture, drivel doesn't always win. I think it takes effort to make good art, and it takes effort to appreciate it. If humans weren't willing to put in that effort, then maybe Adorno would be 100% right. But he's not.