[watermark]Shaoyi Wang Paper 1 MEDST300W Prof. Herzog According to Theodor Adorno's theory, popular music, which is compared to serious music, are completely failed in both of the structure and the details. Moreover, Theodor Adorno argues about standardization, which he supposes is "the fundamental characteristic of popular music", is also the fundamental arch-criminal of reducing both of the cultural contained and the social class of popular music. Starting with the statement of the spheres disunion between serious music and popular music, Theodor Adorno strictly criticizes on different elements of popular music, through function to content, and in the "framework" argument, he even slightly mentions about listeners' reaction. In brief, Theodor Adorno highly grants the conscientious and careful arrangement in serious music and totally negates the cultural value of popular music. According to his arguments, "the whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumvent standardization.", one needs to follow multiple rules to produce a product, but not create an artistic work. Later on, when it comes to the contents or the details, popular music becomes extremely powerless, because if the whole "framework" is based on those famous and successful sample music, all the details do not even matter. Speaking of the "framework" theory, Theodor Adorno assumes that the popular music listeners do not listen to the music, but some "pre-given" and "pre-accepted framework", therefore, they do not obtain the music as itself, but the whole success industry. Following such circulation, popular music becomes more and more standardized in Theodor Adorno's essay. In "Popular Music and Leisure Time", Theodor Adorno tolerates the standardization of popular music for the first time, instead, he draws his attention to the consumer of the standardization, the listeners. In this paragraph, Theodor Adorno analyses the marketing acceptation of popular music through the social issue and human logic: "People want to have fun." Living under the pressure and anxious, people will naturally "escape from the boredom" and seek for entertainment. Therefore, it is clear enough for Theodor Adorno that it is "the masses want this stuff". They do not suffer the standardization of popular music unilaterally, any thing but, sometimes they can be part of the reasons which make popular music so standardized. Theodor Adorno believes that the customers of popular music can be also considered as one unusual variety of products in the whole musical industry, the type of which performances in the "double-identity". Inside the systematic industry, these listeners are not human being anymore, instead, they signify valuable data and profit, and it is necessary for the industry to train the customers a little bit and use popularity to brain-wash people. On the other hand, these conscious products determine the direction of the popular musical industry also. However, speaking of the determination, Theodor Adorno exposes the concept of pseudo-individualization, which refers to the illusion of free-choice. People suppose they have the freedom of choosing whatever genre as they wish, but they have no clue that they actually make choices among thousands of "copy cats". Moreover, if people choose to escape from their work because they are tired of repeat and boredom, they might sink themselves into another trap of repeat and boredom, because according to Theodor Adorno's arguments, popular music, unlike those creative serious music, is always based on follow, or even copy, the successful function of former famous hits. Normally, the industry come out with a popular hit, and later on there will be a great deal of songs follow up. Some of them might sound almost the same with the original hit. They will be in the same genre, same beats and same conception. Therefore, when people who take off the work, who suppose themselves could finally enjoy something different in their leisure time, they are actually cheated by the "pre-given and pre-accepted framework" of popular music. I personally agree with Theodor Adorno's "leisure time" arguments. "People want to have fun." and I do not think they should complain too much about how much fun the industry compels them to have. Couple of weeks ago, several friends and I talked about how awful the current media is, and some one suddenly said he hated being fed with all the trashy information by media. "I mean, who cares if Britney Spears is having a baby or not? Why can't they tell me something more valuable?" I can not argue with him about exploring Britney Spears having baby step by step is totally a waste of medium, but I am so sure that it is never a waste of masses' attention. People love such kinds of news, or you can say they love being fooled even though they know they are fooled. All those so-called real-life shows on VH1 or some other shows like "Punk'd", everyone can tell they are under some perfectly arrangements, but people still watch them like they are from real-life. They might hate being told that they are cheated by media more than being cheated by media. Therefore, when it comes to popular music, the mass plays the same fool. They do not mind listen to the millions of repeated rhyme and billions of similar lyrics are combined together to be those zillions of song-hits. Mass like to be entertained, and they need to be entertained. Thus, the nature of mass culture discontinues the possibility of mass complaining how industry cheats them, because they ask for that themselves. If they really want to correct the industry, they need to self-criticize first. Speaking of self-criticism, lots of current pop music artists works on the attempt of avoiding the standardization. I think Theodor Adorno had been too critical about their attempt, and he may be holding extreme views about the creation of popular music. After all, things are not immutable and frozen. What had been criticized by Theodor Adorno might became what we consider "serious music" today. Actually, I do not think Theodor Adorno is purely arguing about the problem of the music. He focuses much more on commercial profit, because this is what fundamentally drives the industry. For those artists who consider their career as not only a money-making journey, but also a music-creation journey, the standardization should not be a problem any more. I am personally a fan of Nirvana, and for couple of months ago, one of my friends sent me a mp3 file called "the smell of teen's spirit" by e-mail. I felt funny because we are close friends and I thought he should know that I have most of Nirvana's works. However, later I found out this is a Tori Amos's version of "the smell of teen's spirit". I do not think I can tell they are the same song if I do not know "the smell of teen's spirit" so well, because Tori Amos totally change the identity of this song from every sense. Instead of the noisy and grungy background music, she simply slow down the beat and complete the whole performance by piano. Although the lyrics are still the same, this two different versions of "the smell of teen's spirit" have two completely different artistic conception, and I do not think the listeners will be locked up in any kinds of "pre-given and pre-accepted frameworks" or functions, anything but, this is a creative moment of a pop artist, a moment of borrowing others' works to represent one's own conscious and ideology. Therefore, I think there should not be any spheres between music, and what really differs one from others is how much the artists express themselves in every single pieces of the music. [/watermark]
Paper 1
MEDST300W
Prof. Herzog
According to Theodor Adorno's theory, popular music, which is compared to serious music, are completely failed in both of the structure and the details. Moreover, Theodor Adorno argues about standardization, which he supposes is "the fundamental characteristic of popular music", is also the fundamental arch-criminal of reducing both of the cultural contained and the social class of popular music. Starting with the statement of the spheres disunion between serious music and popular music, Theodor Adorno strictly criticizes on different elements of popular music, through function to content, and in the "framework" argument, he even slightly mentions about listeners' reaction. In brief, Theodor Adorno highly grants the conscientious and careful arrangement in serious music and totally negates the cultural value of popular music. According to his arguments, "the whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumvent standardization.", one needs to follow multiple rules to produce a product, but not create an artistic work. Later on, when it comes to the contents or the details, popular music becomes extremely powerless, because if the whole "framework" is based on those famous and successful sample music, all the details do not even matter. Speaking of the "framework" theory, Theodor Adorno assumes that the popular music listeners do not listen to the music, but some "pre-given" and "pre-accepted framework", therefore, they do not obtain the music as itself, but the whole success industry. Following such circulation, popular music becomes more and more standardized in Theodor Adorno's essay.
In "Popular Music and Leisure Time", Theodor Adorno tolerates the standardization of popular music for the first time, instead, he draws his attention to the consumer of the standardization, the listeners. In this paragraph, Theodor Adorno analyses the marketing acceptation of popular music through the social issue and human logic: "People want to have fun." Living under the pressure and anxious, people will naturally "escape from the boredom" and seek for entertainment. Therefore, it is clear enough for Theodor Adorno that it is "the masses want this stuff". They do not suffer the standardization of popular music unilaterally, any thing but, sometimes they can be part of the reasons which make popular music so standardized. Theodor Adorno believes that the customers of popular music can be also considered as one unusual variety of products in the whole musical industry, the type of which performances in the "double-identity". Inside the systematic industry, these listeners are not human being anymore, instead, they signify valuable data and profit, and it is necessary for the industry to train the customers a little bit and use popularity to brain-wash people. On the other hand, these conscious products determine the direction of the popular musical industry also. However, speaking of the determination, Theodor Adorno exposes the concept of pseudo-individualization, which refers to the illusion of free-choice. People suppose they have the freedom of choosing whatever genre as they wish, but they have no clue that they actually make choices among thousands of "copy cats". Moreover, if people choose to escape from their work because they are tired of repeat and boredom, they might sink themselves into another trap of repeat and boredom, because according to Theodor Adorno's arguments, popular music, unlike those creative serious music, is always based on follow, or even copy, the successful function of former famous hits. Normally, the industry come out with a popular hit, and later on there will be a great deal of songs follow up. Some of them might sound almost the same with the original hit. They will be in the same genre, same beats and same conception. Therefore, when people who take off the work, who suppose themselves could finally enjoy something different in their leisure time, they are actually cheated by the "pre-given and pre-accepted framework" of popular music.
I personally agree with Theodor Adorno's "leisure time" arguments. "People want to have fun." and I do not think they should complain too much about how much fun the industry compels them to have. Couple of weeks ago, several friends and I talked about how awful the current media is, and some one suddenly said he hated being fed with all the trashy information by media. "I mean, who cares if Britney Spears is having a baby or not? Why can't they tell me something more valuable?" I can not argue with him about exploring Britney Spears having baby step by step is totally a waste of medium, but I am so sure that it is never a waste of masses' attention. People love such kinds of news, or you can say they love being fooled even though they know they are fooled. All those so-called real-life shows on VH1 or some other shows like "Punk'd", everyone can tell they are under some perfectly arrangements, but people still watch them like they are from real-life. They might hate being told that they are cheated by media more than being cheated by media. Therefore, when it comes to popular music, the mass plays the same fool. They do not mind listen to the millions of repeated rhyme and billions of similar lyrics are combined together to be those zillions of song-hits. Mass like to be entertained, and they need to be entertained. Thus, the nature of mass culture discontinues the possibility of mass complaining how industry cheats them, because they ask for that themselves. If they really want to correct the industry, they need to self-criticize first.
Speaking of self-criticism, lots of current pop music artists works on the attempt of avoiding the standardization. I think Theodor Adorno had been too critical about their attempt, and he may be holding extreme views about the creation of popular music. After all, things are not immutable and frozen. What had been criticized by Theodor Adorno might became what we consider "serious music" today. Actually, I do not think Theodor Adorno is purely arguing about the problem of the music. He focuses much more on commercial profit, because this is what fundamentally drives the industry. For those artists who consider their career as not only a money-making journey, but also a music-creation journey, the standardization should not be a problem any more.
I am personally a fan of Nirvana, and for couple of months ago, one of my friends sent me a mp3 file called "the smell of teen's spirit" by e-mail. I felt funny because we are close friends and I thought he should know that I have most of Nirvana's works. However, later I found out this is a Tori Amos's version of "the smell of teen's spirit". I do not think I can tell they are the same song if I do not know "the smell of teen's spirit" so well, because Tori Amos totally change the identity of this song from every sense. Instead of the noisy and grungy background music, she simply slow down the beat and complete the whole performance by piano. Although the lyrics are still the same, this two different versions of "the smell of teen's spirit" have two completely different artistic conception, and I do not think the listeners will be locked up in any kinds of "pre-given and pre-accepted frameworks" or functions, anything but, this is a creative moment of a pop artist, a moment of borrowing others' works to represent one's own conscious and ideology.
Therefore, I think there should not be any spheres between music, and what really differs one from others is how much the artists express themselves in every single pieces of the music.
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