Popular Music-A means to an end of social control and influence of the masses, with reference to Theodor

Adorno.

Theodor Adorno`s critical analysis of Popular Music in his 1941 essay `Philosophy of New Music `is

regarded as ground breaking by social research academics in his analysis of the importance and impact on

society of popular music and culture. In this essay I will define what is meant by the terms `popular music`

and `popular culture `and to consider these terms in the context of Adorno`s social ,cultural and political

influences. I will then also explore to what extent `popular music` can be regarded as a means to an end of

social control and influence of the masses.

Theodor Adorno was one of the earliest academic writers to consider the importance of popular music.

He was a member of the Frankfurt school which was an institution of social research and Adorno was one of

a collection of Marxist theorists, which also included Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal and Walter

Benjamin. The Frankfurt school’s studies on `popular culture` identified that a lot of Marxist theory could

not be applied to a changing capitalist culture. Adorno`s writings from the 1940’s through to the 1970’s were

part of the Frankfurt school’s reinterpretation of Marx for the 20th century often referred to as Western

Marxism. New terminology was developed to describe how these Marxist ideas could reflect and help us

understand modern consumer capitalism. One such term developed by Theodor Adorno and Max

Horkheimer in 1979 was the `culture industry.`

“Culture industry refers to the process and products of mass culture.” (J.Storey, 2000)

The Western Marxists believed that “mass culture was very predictable and transparent and was

manipulating the ‘masses’ in to consuming culture without critically considering what it was they were

consuming.” (J.Storey, 2000)

More significantly the crucial role of the mass media in this manipulation was seen to be controlled by the

ruling class elites of capitalism. The critical positioning of the media has a great impact on popular culture

and the general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development in society.

“It is a culture that produces satisfaction in the here and now, de-politicalising the working class, limiting its

horizon to political and economic goals that can be achieved within the oppressive and exploitative

framework of capitalist society.” (J.Storey, 2000)

Their view of modern culture was essentially pessimistic, the role of mass culture under capitalism they felt

was simply to manufacture the consent of the many to their exploitation by the powerful few. Adorno argued

that the culture industry which produced and circulated cultural commodities such as music through the

mass media manipulated the population. Popular culture was identified as a reason why people became

passive, the achievable ‘easy’ pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people docile

and content, regardless of their terrible economic circumstances.

Adorno makes a clear distinction between mass culture and ‘authentic’ culture in that authentic culture

encourages societies to aspire for a better way of living and future. However, Adorno argues that authentic is

increasingly under pressure by the culture industry as we see the production and pursuit of profit in our

capitalist society. Popular culture is perceived to be inferior to the more elite Avant-garde and high culture.

Different media such as television, fashion and music could be critically analysed by popular culture and

trends that would appear amongst the masses. Culture industries saw a hunger for false needs, these needs

were derived and created by a capitalist society and satisfied by people’s needs to fit in. This overshadowed

what Adorno and Horkheimer believed were the true needs of society being real happiness, creativity and

freedom. As opposed to passive happiness and acceptance exploitative society.

Popular culture by its very definition refers to what is liked by many people at a given time. Adorno

applied this notion of popular culture to popular music. He held the view that class movements in society at

the end of the 18th century marked a change of eras and coincided with the beginning of popular music. At

this time, he argued social forces engineered these changes in music, such as the development of music as a

commodity of for sale and possession.

Referencing Adorno’s essay ‘On Popular Music‘ there are three key points which he raises. One is that

popular music is standardised, secondly that its creates passive listeners and finally that popular music acts as

‘Social Cement’. In Adorno’s view there are two types of music, serious and popular music. He would

generally associate `good/serious’ music as being something which has been carefully considered with a

variety of complex instrumental influence, along with a well constructed system of sound. He saw in

Beethoven’s music, created at the end of the 18th century, as an example of music as ‘Great Art’ and which

demonstrates `Creative Autonomy’. Whereas, in contrast, Adorno said, you could categorise popular music

by being able to replace certain structures in a song with a similar sound, but slightly different, which to the

average listener, sounds new, different and innovative. He viewed popular music as part of the elite classes of

society, manipulating the masses `To what they are going to get anyhow,’ and such is the scale, there is limited

opportunity, or will to challenge the passivity of popular music.

One of the key points in Adorno‘s essay ‘On Popular Music‘ was that music was being standardised.

Adorno believed that popular culture was producing standardised trends in music. He believed that

standardisation in music shows no original, innovative and forward thinking sounds in music ` Serious music’

used to be very competitive and boundaries were being pushed. The standardisation of popular music sees

the big musical institutes and labels produce mere imitations of artists that already exist but present in a

slightly different image when they are ultimately shadows of one another. The success of one artist and their

style in popular culture sees a surge in others just like it, with the exact same sound and musical structure. He

saw that society was being manipulated into ‘passivity’ by the dominant elite, whereby society would have no

critical thoughts on trends through the consumption of popular culture - meaning they were content and

easily pleased to follow without being critically aware of what was happening. Supporting the view that

popular music could be seen as a means to an end of social control and influences of the masses.

‘The whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumvent

standardization. Standardization extends from the most general features to the most specific ones.’ (Icce,

2000, Adorno - ‘On Popular Music’)

This clearly states how Adorno felt on popular music and how it is almost regurgitated into different forms.

Popular music, labels and artists know what is going to be a hit, so they take a structure of a song, how it is

built up and put together and they follow the traditional characteristics to create a new, slightly different

version. In doing so, the spell of popular music and its standardisation is continued.

‘The ear deals with the difficulties of hit music by achieving slight substitutions derived from the knowledge

of the patterns. The listener, when faced with the complicated, actually hears only the simple which it

represents and perceives the complicated only as a parodistic distortion of the simple.’ (Icce, 2000, Adorno -

‘On Popular Music’)

This both reinforces standardisation but also talks about how the listeners is passive and doesn't critically

evaluate what it is they are consuming, they hear it on a simple level and do not consider more in depth

thought about what they are listening to and how it compares to the other music they listen to. Adorno

believed listeners only use popular music as a way of escaping the reality of their lives as it’s a form of

entertainment which alters their priorities - Popular music a means to an end of social control and influence

of the masses by the dominant elite.

As part of the standardisation process of popular music and how it creates passive listeners Adorno also

identifies the concept of `pseudo-individualisation.` He describes it as individuality in our culture and what it

means to people to stand out from the crowd when really its all fake-such people think they are breaking the

boundaries of social culture, but really they’re not. In terms of music the songs that are being created which

perhaps have a ‘niche’ style Pseudo-individualisation sees people swarm towards it and the image it creates,

they then mimic this, interpreting it as being individual and unique, unaware of the docility of what they’re

listening to and they don’t comprehend the idea of what they’re listening to and how it’s already been pre-

digested.

“By pseudo-individualization we mean endowing cultural mass production with the halo of free choice or

open market on the basis of standardization itself. Standardization of song hits keeps the customers in line by

doing their listening for them, as it were. Pseudo-individualization, for its part, keeps them in line by making

them forget that what they listen to is already listened to for them, or "pre-digested". (Icce, 2000, Adorno -

‘On Popular Music’)

Here Adorno reinforces the idea of the illusion the listener is under-blissfully unaware of this idea that what

they are listening to is not unique, they’ve already heard it before it’s just been presented to them in a slightly

different way. Adorno saw there to be two types of pseudo-individualised people, there was the ‘emotional’

type and the ‘Rhythmical’ type. The rhythmical type almost speaks for itself, focusing on the youth and their

interpretations of ‘dancing’ to the music. The emotional type of the two socio-psychological groups is about

how the listeners become attached to the music they’re listening to as well as the musicians, they reflect songs

on their own life, and experiences and empathise with them. Adorno could see the positive aspects of

pseudo-individualisation in that it creates an illusional state of society. The music industry and labels are

always under criticisms about what they produce and artists they release, Pseudo-individualisation is seen to

counter the argument as to how the music industry is standardised as it creates the illusion that it is all about

the individual. However the rhythmical and emotional types of pseudo individuals replace the function of

music and creates its own social cement.

“Most listeners of popular music do not understand music as a language in itself. If they did it would be

vastly difficult to explain how they could tolerate the incessant supply of largely undifferentiated material.” (J.

Storey, 2000-The Social Cement)

This raises the argument of what exactly does music mean to the listener? Storey states that the language of

music is transformed by objective processes into a language which they think is their own - into a language

which serves as a receptacle for their institutionalized wants, this is when we see music being replaced by

mere socio-psychological functions. which translate in to two types of mass behaviour towards music in

general and popular music, the ‘Rhythmically obedient’ type and the ‘Emotional’ type. (J. Storey, 2000)

Music in contemporary society is influenced by popular culture with a developing society which is easily

influenced by the media we are able to notice popular trends which appear in our culture. In popular culture

and music today its very important to raise the issue of marketing, different genres of music mean we see

different images and styles occur, The image of an artist or band will alter the way they are marketed to an

audience. Marketing music can take different forms it can be through concerts, merchandise, album covers

and even location for example where concerts are held is it at an arena or a club? These are all things that

need to considered. This is relevant to popular culture and music because in order for an artist or band to be

popular along with having the music, the appropriate audience need to be able to associate with them in

some way so that it makes the it feel personal to the listener on some level be it the way they dress or how it

makes them feel, evidence of Adorno`s pseudo -individualisation. Rap & Hip Hop is one of the most popular

forms of music in popular culture to date and has a massive following, I will be taking a look at some album

covers in order to analyse how it is sold to an audience, why they buy it and the image the artists have. Below

are two examples of Album covers which were sold around the world, they are good examples of the sort of

trend we see in Hip-Hop album covers and the way they’re designed.

To the left is a ‘Young Money’ single release, Young Money is the name of a record label which hosts some of

the biggest artists in the genre such as Lil’ Wayne and Drake. The single featured all of the artists on the label

and so they featured all of the people on the cover; one of the first things you notice are the people and the

colours that are used and the fact they are posing as a group presents an image that is quite intimidating. The

title Young Money with its diamond flashy type obviously reinforced by the title denoting the wealth of the

label, they have money, there’s lots of them, creating the image that you shouldn’t mess with them. The

colour scheme is notably very similar with each of the two covers-dark colours with flashes of bold red -

allusions to gang/drug culture and race a form of pseudo-individualisation. The second album cover is for

the artist ‘Rick Ross’ The type for his name and the use of dollar signs for the letter ‘S’ also reinforces the

idea of wealth which are connotations we can identify in both covers. In western society black youth-in

particular males under achieve academically for a range of social and cultural reasons.

“the fundamental difference in our society are class differences, but the use of manufactured good as means

of creating classes or groups forms an overlay on them”.(Judith Williamson, 1978)

Hip Hop and rap music presents itself as a version of standardised `popular` music which individuals are

able to identify with as an example of pseudo-individualisation. The sound, style and marketing of this form

of `popular `music has appeal to both rhythmical and emotional types of pseudo individuals and the visual

images of the marketing offer an aspiration of being able to achieve economic wealth and success but what is

less clear is at whose or what expense?

`Youth cultural conventions begin by issuing Symbolic challenges, but they must end by establishing new

conventions :by creating new commodities, new industries, or rejuvenating old ones” (Hebdige, D. 1979)

In conclusion it can be said that Adorno`s view of popular culture and music is sociologically highly

significant and his theories relating to standardisation of music and pseudo individualisation are evident in

the marketing of a range of genres -including hip hop and rap and which all to a greater or lesser degree

cultivate a passivity of acceptance of its own version of social cement. In this way it can be seen that popular

music as part of popular culture can be seen to be a means to an end of the dominant elite of social control

and influence of the masses. However, it needs to remembered that in developing his theories Adorno did not

consider the diversity of popular music that continued to develop in his own lifetime. Indeed, contemporary

music is very different now to how it was in 1941. It could also be argued that social networking sites have

presented another vehicle to promote new and innovative sounds as opposed to the established culture

industry to the financial benefit of the elite. Adorno`s ground-breaking work analysing music and popular

culture has begun a debate that will no doubt continue long into the future.

Bibliography

websites

Icce, 2000

On Popular Music

by Theodor W. Adorno, with the assistance of George SimpsonOriginally published in: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941, IX, 17-48.http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/SWA/On_popular_music_1.shtml

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=131839

07-08-2010 Neil CockerDafydd Griffiths

http://www.weareyoungmoney.com/2010 © Young Money Entertainment.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres

‘We are young money’

‘Rick Ross’

books

Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. J.Storey. Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (12 Oct 2000)

pages; standardisation -14,73-79,81,587

popular culture - 584

popular music - 23-24, 66, 73,84,440-451

pseudo-individualisation - 66, 78-82

‘subculture: the meaning of style’

Hebdige, D. - 1979 - p45

Publisher: Routledge; New Ed edition (1979)

‘Decoding Advertisements’ - Ideology and Meaning in Advertising

Judith Williamson - 1978 - p156

Publisher: Marion Boyars; Reissue edition (1 Feb 1978)

articles

‘On popular music’by Theodor W. Adorno, with the assistance of George SimpsonOriginally published in: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941, IX, 17-48.http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/SWA/On_popular_music_1.shtml