Adorno (1932), "On Popular Music"

1. Popular music is all the same. It distinguishes itself from classical music by repeating itself. Popular music producers trick us into thinking the music is new by altering minute aspects of melody or voice.

Adorno (1932) argues that popular music is all cut from the same proverbial cloth, distinguishing itself from classical genres by replicating itself endlessly rather than creating new and creative forms. In fact, he argues, popular music goes so far as to create small, internal advances within melodies and voices in order to disguise the fact that all popular music is highly standardized. 

2. This standardization functions as escapism and wish fulfillment, which appeases people.

The purpose, according to Adorno, is to create “a social cement” (p. 311). Listeners feel music first as leisure, which offers a small respite from the “boredom of mechanized labor” (p. 310), and second as a catharsis of wish fulfillment. While this is not an unreasonable analysis, what is problematic about this essay is the way that Adorno (as usual) assumes a totally passive audience, often insinuating the misery of the faceless masses, even arguing that listeners “consume music in order to be allowed to weep” (p. 313). Though it was not the most uplifting piece I read all week, Adorno does make some interesting points which, were the Marxist overdetermination toned down a bit, could be very compelling even 70 years later.