Within this
text Adorno outlines ‘two spheres of music’
as ‘serious’ (non standardised) and ‘popular’ (standardised) music.
Along with FR Leavis (1933), Adorno sees the standardisation as the structure
of this type of media that is fed to the masses. The standardisation is not
simply in the way music is produced but also in the way that it is received by
the masses. The best known rule according to Adorno, is that a chorus consists
of 32 bars and that the range is limited to one octave and one note.
The reasons for the standardization, according to Adorno,
come not from the methods of production like ‘cars and breakfast foods’, but
from the demands of the listener. The masses want relief from boredom and
effort simultaneously and popular music works for this reason because it is
‘patterned and pre-digested’ – as mentioned before, we know the frameworks of a
song before hearing it.
Adorno also looks at the ‘emotional’ listener who identifies
with the celebrities formed through popular music. When you look at the
celebrities around today who make ‘music’, it is often the construction of the
singer/celebrity that catches the emotion of the listener, rather than the
music itself. For example Justin Biever and One Direction could be a good example of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment