Hennion (1983) reports on his interactions with popular music producers to examine the ways producers attempt to create a profitable product. He moves through a number of categories of consideration (including things like the singer's voice, the melody, the accompaniment, and the story of the lyrics). Hennion (1983) argues that popular songs function as dreams in two ways.
1. Popular music replicates the escapist feeling of a dream.
Popular music offers the escapist feeling of a dream primarily through its storytelling function. Hennion (1983) notes that the most successful popular songs should tell a story that feels simultaneously current and rooted in timeless myth. This effect is enhanced through the background music, which Hennion (1983) argues is often unnoticed by the listener. Elements like fading out within popular music further contribute to the dream-like status of music, since dreams do not end abruptly.
2. Popular music captures the present before politicians and commentators can. Music therefore represents the public's dreams for the future before they fully materialize elsewhere.
Hennion (1983) notes that producers do not tell people what to like. Instead, they offer a number of possible songs, and the public will eventually grasp on to one of them. He understands these various options as choices for the current cultural moment will be defined. The most successful songs are defined and circulated by popular musicians before anyone fully realizes where the culture is going. The song, therefore, co-creates the meaning of the cultural moment.
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