Task 2

Adorno see’s music in two forms, popular music and serious music. He first talks about how ‘popular’ music is standardized and see’s that it is homogenous in the way it is promoted, sold and also in arrangement and character, “ Best known is the rule that the chorus consists of thirty two bars and that the range is limited to one octave and one note.”(Adorno p3).

He also says “The whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumvent standardization.”(Adorno p3) which implies that that even today’s alternative music is formulaic.

Adorno’s other principal belief was that popular music was pseudo individualistic. This means that the listener beliefs they are making an individual choice and that the music is authentic and different when in reality it is the same and most probably will have been done before in a slightly different way.

Another term or belief that Adorno speaks about is ‘plugging’, the constant of repetition via the mass media of popular music. This in turn brain washes people and generates a ‘sheep’ like mentality amongst people suppressing their desire to question life more deeply resulting in acceptance, conformity and compliance.

A modern example of this can be seen in today’s popular music scene where the so called music genre ‘dubstep’ has been plugged and plugged by the mass media which in turn has resulted in a dramatic increase in popularity.

I guess what Adorno is trying to say is that ‘popular’ music has a influence on our culture and society and if we don’t question what music we listen to then how can we question the society we live in.

This is a classic example of pseudo individualistic the listener beliefs that they are making a choice to listen to a new exciting band when in fact its been planned by the record company that people will react in this way. You can also notice a big influence in there style and music from the ramones. This backs up Adorno's veiw that everything is the same and homogenous even after 2 decades of change.