Adorno on Political Pop Music

[butchersapron]

in vino veritas, no need to waffle.

 

[gorski]

...like you above...

 

[phildwyer]

History left him by on this front. People did what he said they couldn't and wouldn't, They made their own culture(s). They made a whole series of them - all under the same pressures and so co-optable or re-cuperable, but all existing.

Until the late nineteenth century, when commercial culture was stuffed down their throats to replace their own, a process which Adorno analysed with unsurpassed brilliance. Do you consider Hollywood movies, television shows or pop music to be the culture of the people? Such things are the *antitheses* of popular culture.

 

[butchersapron]

False narrative

 

[gorski]

Da, kamarad Stalin!!!!

 

[butchersapron]

It's easy this critical theory stuff, it's modernised platonic forms. It was good then it went shit, but we can rescue the good bits. It's liberation theology for people who aren't communists.

 

[butchersapron]

Until the late nineteenth century, when commercial culture was stuffed down their throats to replace their own, a process which Adorno analysed with unsurpassed brilliance. Do you consider Hollywood movies, television shows or pop music to be the culture of the people? Such things are the *antitheses* of popular culture.

Not today. It's not 1860. People have mae and remade their own cultures out of anything they find - the same as they did before industrialisation. Because people are creative beings - this anti-communist idea that people are sullen recipients of their own life is disgusting, almost as disgusting as this fairy tale of a once pure culture now polluted.

 

[phildwyer]

Not today. It's not 1860. People have mae and remade their own cultures out of anything they find - the same as they did before industrialisation. Because people are creative beings - this anti-communist idea that people are sullen recipients of their own life is disgusting, almost as disgusting as this fairy tale of a once pure culture now polluted.

You think the people made Paris Hilton? Or was she, as it were, stuffed down their throats?

 

[butchersapron]

I don't think that question has any relavence. Unless it's a finger wagging scenario, in which case, the 20th century is open and yours.

 

[phildwyer]

I don't think that question has any relavence. Unless it's a finger wagging scenario, in which case, the 20th century is open and yours.

My point is that 99% of what passes for "popular culture" is in fact *corporate* culture, in which the only role for the masses is as consumers. P. Hilton being a particularly obvious example of this general phenomenon.

 

[butchersapron]

My point s is that your 99% is laughable and stuck in the 1860s

 

[gorski]

Kamarad Stalin has spoken.

[Never mind the proof - you just don't ask these questions of kamarad Stalin!!!!!!]

 

[butchersapron]

It's the past arguing that it never happened.

 

[gorski]

Absolutely, kamarad Stalin!!!

 

[butchersapron]

Kamarad Stalin has spoken.

[Never mind the proof - you just don't ask these questions of kamarad Stalin!!!!!!]

You were on your balcony listening to Zappa and sonic dissidents like that anyway.

 

[gorski]

Whoa, not only alcohol, now it's drugs, too, man... No wonder he dislikes Zappa....

 

[butchersapron]

Mein gott. Move the fuck on monopussy. This noise contexualises itself via it's reference to a previous noise played by zippy on his balcony.

 

[Mr Moose]

It doesn't matter what anyone says - some popular culture is fantastic.

You cannot be wholly 'authentic', you can't transcend history, though through trying you can produce some great things. Adorno wasn't very good at recognising resistance as being of merit and creative.

Could you write off, say Motown, as just the bootprint of capitalism? Punk, ska, reggae, rap?...etc etc..

Its not even an argument.

 

[gorski]

Mein gott. Move the fuck on monopussy. This noise contexualises itself via it's reference to a previous noise played by zippy on his balcony.

And you're here - why? You have nothing to learn from anyone, you're only ever talking at people, never to someone, you know it all and only your point of view is correct/truthful/meaningful, you're always abusing anything that moves in any manner other than the one approved by you...

Tell you what, kamarad Stalin, why don't you move to China or Russia or Cuba or North Korea or maybe Vietnam and help them with some REAL LEADERSHIP, as their leaderships are crumbling... Your talents are wasted on here...

All hail the Vozhd/Fuehrer/Duce Bitch!!!!!

 

[nino_savatte]

I had thought of contributing to this, then I saw that two posters whom I have put on permanent ignore are on here. One is a mad, creepy stalker and sex perv, the other is an egomaniacal would be tyrant.

 

[Fruitloop]

It's interesting that despite Adorno's genre-level criticism of stuff like jazz, he was actually fascinated by popular music and what made a particular pop tune successful when thousands of other similar-sounding ones weren't - probably a reflection of the fact that he was a practising musician as well as a critic, and so would have realised that no successful musical composition is completely devoid of skill and effort. The real elitist was Marcuse, who despite being the doyen of the supposedly anti-establishment popular culture in reality absolutely despised it all without exception.

Adorno is at his best as a critic when he concentrates on modes of listening rather than The Music Itself.

 

[butchersapron]

And you're here - why? You have nothing to learn from anyone, you're only ever talking at people, never to someone, you know it all and only your point of view is correct/truthful/meaningful, you're always abusing anything that moves in a any manner other than the one approved by you...

Tell you what, kamarad Stalin, why don't you move to China or Russia or Cuba or North Korea or maybe Vietnam and help them with some REAL LEADERSHIP, as their leaderships are crumbling... Your talents are wasted on here...

All hail the Vozhd/Fuehrer/Duce Bitch!!!!!

There is much work to be done here though.

 

[butchersapron]

It's interesting that despite Adorno's genre-level criticism of stuff like jazz, he was actually fascinated by popular music and what made a particular pop tune successful when thousands of other similar-sounding ones weren't - probably a reflection of the fact that he was a practising musician as well as a critic, and so would have realised that no successful musical composition is completely devoid of skill and effort. The real elitist was Marcuse, who despite being the doyen of the supposedly anti-establishment popular culture in reality absolutely despised it all without exception.

Adorno is at his best as a critic when he concentrates on modes of listening rather than The Music Itself.

I've got some adorno writen audio. It's bland. Bit i probably haven't the skillset to knock it

 

[butchersapron]

In fact, give us a sec and i'll upload it somewhere.

 

[nino_savatte]

It's interesting that despite Adorno's genre-level criticism of stuff like jazz, he was actually fascinated by popular music and what made a particular pop tune successful when thousands of other similar-sounding ones weren't - probably a reflection of the fact that he was a practising musician as well as a critic, and so would have realised that no successful musical composition is completely devoid of skill and effort. The real elitist was Marcuse, who despite being the doyen of the supposedly anti-establishment popular culture in reality absolutely despised it all without exception.

Adorno is at his best as a critic when he concentrates on modes of listening rather than The Music Itself.

He wasn't against all jazz, as I popularly claimed by those who continue to misrepresent him. He criticised the pop fare of the 20's and 30's, which was a type of jazz.

 

[Fruitloop]

Hmm, I would say that it's more that he means something slightly different when he talks about 'jazz' in a critical way to the way that we use it - he has in mind a particular type of musical and cultural formalisation that doesn't necessarily cover all the stuff that we would call jazz these days.

 

[Fruitloop]

In fact, give us a sec and i'll upload it somewhere.

That would be great.

 

[gorski]

There is much work to be done here though.

Yeah, that just about sums your proselytising up...

 

[butchersapron]

That would be great.

Uploading now - taking some time though.

 

[Fruitloop]

No problem

The other thing that always bothers me slightly about Adorno, is that there is this implication of some kind of 'decline and fall', as if the situation of musicians as indentured servants, or music as an entertainment for the bourgeois salon was in some way inherently superior to music as a commodity form.