Theodore Adorno’s notions of ‘standardisation’ and ‘pseudo-individualism’ might be applied to contemporary pop music

Basing your discussion on an analysis of at least 2 contemporary artists or bands, consider the ways that Theodore Adornos notions of standardisation and pseudo-individualism might be utilize to contemporary go finished medicament. Do you see any problems or shortcomings from this barbel?Popular Culture has enticed much research with the increase of media studies t here argon a number of minds picking apart what they see. With icons filing up and saturating mediums such(prenominal) as television, magazines, radio stations to name a close to, the celebrity make full effort is undoubtedly causing a stir amongst the masses.Theodore Adorno (1903-69) emigrated to England in 1934 to lack Nazism. He lived in the United States of America for 10 years, (1938-48) before move to Frankfurt, where he was a member at the Frankfurt Institute of fond Research. Theodore Adorno was a disclose figure in the study of favorite euphony and had intrinsic Marxist facial expression on the cap ital nature of decree. Adorno believed that the agri civilization manufacture is the central agency in contemporary capitalism for the production and satisfaction of false inevitably. (Adorno, T and Horkheimer, M. 1977, p349).He argues that popular harmony is a mass-produced and sh completelyow evaluate part of the civilisation industry. This would conjure that either aspects of popular unison including types of variants, song lyrics and parts of songs e.g. chorus, atomic number 18 all standardised. (Longhurst, B. 1995, p5).Popular medicament is therefore divided into particular categories or genres of music such as rock, pop, rap, heavy metal and reggae etc, however according to Adorno, all popular music is standardised consisting of verse, chorus, bridge, that are interchangeable from one song to another. The effects of standardisation are practically hidden by what the industry calls pseudo-individualisation. These are incidental differences, likewise k at a timen as frills that are gear up within a song to disguise that it sounds the a want(p).Adorno distinguishes sharply between pop music and serious music between high culture and petty(a) cultures. Serious music, which he regards as unpolluted, Beethoven or Mozart for casing, ferments to the pleasures of the image offer an engagement with the world, as it should be.Especially due to this separation his theories were often attacked for cosmos elitist. The comparison of pop music and serious music was a main topic for him. Adorno describes individuals who enjoy popular music corrupt by entrance and open to the domination of industrialised capitalist systems. (Longhurst, B. 1995, p8). This view answer fors for the emotional needs that popular music may fulfil as false and immature, kind of than deep and/or penetrating. Adorno continued to equate the form with Tin travel Alley and jazz orientated variations of it, ignoring the arising of rock and roll in the early 1950s. This undermined his critique and resulted in his views generally beingness strongly spurned by more contemporary rock analysts. (Shuker, R. 1994 23).Adorno claims that Popular music is churned into a production line where everything sounds similar, its an industry that exploits us for profit and brotherly control, to judge certain conditions ab let out the world in which we live by a capitalist society. It would be fair to say that to some extent this is true. We do live in a capitalist society and in the music industry the process of absorption is achieved by capitalism through publicize and grocery storeing of a product with a pop star or pop band. Everything about them move arounds a commodity, their clothes, image, likes and dislikes etc, transcends its immediate functional use to become a key symbol of a whole lifestyle. The argument implies that the rise of the popular music to mass status is a consequence of the symbolic strategies invested in it quite than the actual quality of the music.This essentially means that although the products of the culture industry are alike in intimately cases, some individuality is consciously added to make it divers(prenominal) from the rest even though essentially it is the same product. This is pseudo individualism. Adorno uses the Hollywood star system as an example, the more dehumanized its method of operation and content, the more diligently and successfully the culture industry propagates supposedly vast individual(prenominal)ities, and operates with heart throbs. (Adorn, T. 1991, p87).A modern day example can be seen in boy bands such as Westlife, Nsync, Backstreet boys and the most recent One true voice derived from Popstars the rivals, a spin of show produced earlier as Popstars in January 2001. Although the music is very similar in structure, key fruit and content, the customer can choose between several versions of these boy bands.It could be suggested, the culture industry produces culture, whic h the masses consume unthinkingly and are therefore confirmed as unthinking. It is a culture which produces satisfaction in the here and now, depoliticising the working class, limiting its horizon to political and economic goals that can be achieved within the oppressive and exploitive framework of capitalist society. (Storey, J. 1998 p188).The audience, through a selection process selected the new- do boy band, One received Voice over a number of weeks. A group of 5 males aged between 17 and 22, they do fit into a usual boy band category. They released a Christmas song called Sacred Trust which is actually a cover version of another male group the Bee Gees. Adorno would claim that we as masses consume everything the business churns out and on a personal level I would agree as this appears to be both standardised and contains pseudo individualism as it is sung by a new group with added frills however this has been evident in popular music for generations and make groups will c ontinue to use this method in order to arrive more sales. We live in a consumerist society where these manufactured groups are providing a helper for their audience. A major critique of this is that Adorno does not go to at the emotional response of the audience and how standardisation is also a form of pleasure. By this it means that standardisation is a form of pledge for the audience and this predictability is often welcoming.Adorno and other writers of the Frankfurt school, especially Herbert Marcuse (1898-1978) sees the process of the culture industry as a means of capitalist society to poise itself.Theodore Adorno claimed that popular music operates as a tool of social cement. Although his books was published in 1941, his delineates on popular music does not account for the complexities of recent popular music and popular culture. He is heavily criticised due to his unchanging elitist views and it would be fair to say that popular music is not as monolithic as Adorno cl aims.The perspectives offer a relevant scarcely quite pessimistic and what can be considered as narrow apt(p) views of popular music. They have offered foundations for interpretation and understanding of music however some theories since have built on how audiences contextualise and use the products of mass culture rather than what the culture industry does to the audience.Antonio Gramscis (1891-1937) work on Hegemony opened umpteen doors for thought, including ideas that members of society negotiate with the products of the culture. (Fiske, J. 1992, p309). Hegemony helps identify that popular culture is not only if impose on the subordinates by the bourgeoisie and that people are not simply passive and helpless mass incapable of discrimination and thus at the economic, cultural and political mercy of the barons of the industry. (Fiske, J. 1987, p309)Fiske suggests that audiences draw contrasting ideas from different text. bloody shame is a fine example where pleasure of the a udience is in the force out of a severely suboridatly subculture to make their own statements and own implication. (Fiske, J. 1987, p233)These theories have their strengths and differences in helping unpack the tapestry of music. One broker they all share is the acknowledgement that pop music has important social effects. Who are the main consumers of popular music? Youth are highest overwhelming marketing within pop music accounting for the highest percent of unity sales. Bradley (1992) accounted the significance with youths and music as reaction to post war stripling with an increase in disposable income and new position in society. throng Coleman (1961) highlighted the separateness of youth culture from adult society and its closeness to the market through consumption of popular music. Consumption has been linked to youth culture as far back as the 50s, where growing western markets created particularised products and goods for the teenager. (Wulff, H. and Taliai, A. 1995).A n example of success in popular music is bloody shame. She is a key figure in the pop industry as a induct for breaking conventions within gender and sexuality, and has been around for 3 decades, now in her 50s still appealing to the youth, However much debate on Madonna has taken place focusing on her image rather than her music. She has been perceived as the depressionest form of irresponsible culture a social disease and an inauthentic product of the culture industry who was involved of the exploitation of others of the watch of that industry. (Bryman, A. 2001).In relation to Adorno he may have perceived Madonna to be a cultural product, taking pseudo individualism to an extreme, which in turn made her very popular. Madonna moves from various genres of music and blends them unitedly she had a hit record with Dont cry for me Argentina a more operatic song very different to what is considered mainstream music. I feel that Adorno would have critiqued this as popular classical as she took something that can be considered elitist and brought it into popular culture.This view is contrasted with her comparison as an organic feminist who allows girls to see that the meaning of female sexuality can be in their control, can be made in their interests, and that their subjectivitys are not necessarily totally determined by the dominant patriarchy. (McClary, S. 1991.)McClary in her analysis of Madonna has found her to be colossal as a musician who has endured maintained an incredible amount of power as a successful female artist over 3 decades. A simple look at her back catalogue and it is apparent that she uses sexual power as a commodity alike many women throughout western history. Including seventeenth century composer Barbara Strozzie, who was one of a few women who broke through the elite circle of classical music, by be bare breasted for publicity. It would be very interesting to know what Adorno would account for that. (Rosand, E. 1986).Madonna however bri ngs hypocrisy to the surface and problematizes it. With publications of her book, sex and video discourses like in Bed with Madonna She takes a key role in the aggressor sexually. She connects the notions of power and sex and projects it back outwards into the main stream transfer on hips Gautier bust pointy and proud. Her intentions never simplistic, it is possible her representations aim to detach stigmas and notions of taboo to certain sexual matters. This may lead to greater tolerance for those tenanted in these perverted practices and a layered stream of meanings dipictable from her messages.Irony has been depicted as a key strategy in her possible master plan. In Like a Virgin her little girl voice and play with signs of renowned temptresses, her pouts, her coquettish nature and using traditional music signs of childish photograph projecting her knowledge that this is what patriarchy expects of her and also her awareness that this fantasy is crackbrained. (McClary,S. 199 1, p153).A principal factor in the understanding of Madonna messages is the speech communication of cultural experiences and perceptions that she speaks to her audience with. Madonna gives her audience standardisation in the mind that some of her music can be chopped and changed however she also gives her audience challenging and contrasting views about being a charr in straightaways society, that could be argued against Adorno as being engaging, testing and also plays to the pleasures of the imagination offering engagement to the world as it is now.Her audience within popular music are aimed specifically at the mass (for financial and wider circle of her messages) and as evidence in that she plays for the lowest common denominator-that she prostitutes her art an acknowledgment of her self. Prostitution is a service never the less, and it evident that she uses her role to play with traditional boundaries and identities. Madonna uses the tool of fantasy a mode typical of the c ulture industry, however she here compliance to the powers stop, as she twist notions within them. Her fantasies have been seen as ambiguous and unsuccessful for men and she has been compared to a authenticated Boy Toy as male interpretations and reactions to a majority are often that of anxiety and unease rather than appease. (Rolling stone 508 March 28th 1989). On the other hand, the power of Madonna is undoubtedly clear, her vast empire of her payoff Company, her own music label and a net value of 600 one thousand million speaks volumes about her nature as a business women as head as an artist and social figure.It is fair to say that that although popular music in todays generation can be considered as standardized, and to a great extent, manufactured music will always be so, Adornos views are out of date and biased as he had a very low opinion of popular music. Being a musician himself, his opinions were based on his own assumptions of high and low culture and although he di d make some substantial claims about standardization and pseudo individualization, popular music today has more important factors to be dealt with such as the messages it is portraying. One being that we do live in a consumerist society where essentially everything is a product, even classical music today, which Adorno would have considered high art is now commercialized and used as a commodity to sell through advertising. Through it all music captures a moment or intent that Adorno does not account for. Music is another form of expressing an emotion whether it is classical or pop music and it is there for enjoyment, to provide a service and an option to listen to whatever pleases the ear.