Adorno on Political Pop Music

[gorski]

...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.

No one of all those greats said that!!! Exactly the opposite!!! You are trying to:

1) foist a lie onto them

2) steal from them their own work/effort/ideas/principles from which they criticise the commodification of it all!!!

This is is excruciatingly arrogant, ignorant and quite honestly - inept, FFS!!!

 

[nino_savatte]

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.

That's what I was trying to get at in my own inelegant fashion.

 

[Fruitloop]

That's what I was trying to get at in my own inelegant fashion.

Yeah it occurred to me as I was writing that I didn't disagree with you on any particular point.

 

[butchersapron]

No one of all those greats said that!!! Exactly the opposite!!! You are trying to:

1) foist a lie onto them

2) steal from them there own work/effort/ideas/principles from which they criticise the commodification of it all!!!

This is is excruciatingly arrogant, ignorant and quite honestly - inept, FFS!!!

Face it gorski, jazz is great, Acker bilk (happy 80th), Glen Miller, Betty Boop - all great. Fact.

 

[Spion]

Just came across this. The relevant bit starts at 0.56. Makes sense to me, what do you reckon?

It's bollocks. It's like saying the content of Capital is worthless because you buy it as a book, in the market, produced as a commodity

 

[nino_savatte]

All one need to do is look at John Lennon's song Imagine, to see what Adorno is saying. The Tories actually used the song to open their 1988 conference iirc. This is a song that is supposed to be about peace, love, understanding and all those other hippy values. No one could accuse the Tories of embracing such things, given their abhorrence of all things 60's.

 

[butchersapron]

Not all songs are Imagine. Luckily. The banal point that that things an be recuperated is a fact of life not a blinding insight and it doesn't shut the door on anything.

 

[butchersapron]

Here we go - some info below - i'll put it on my own space tonight, rapidshare will have to do do for now:

Before dedicating all his energy to philosophy/social theory and becoming famous as one of the founders and most important figures of the classical frankfurt school/ critical theory Adorno was thinking about pursuing a career in music. He wrote some music that was influenced by Schönberg. Compositions here played by the BUCHBERGER-QUARTETT FRANKFURT and conducted by GARY BERTINI.

01 Zwei Stucke fur Streichquartett op 2, I Bewegt.mp3
02 II Variationen.mp3
03 Sechs kurze Orchesterstucke op 4, I Bewegt, heftig.mp3
04 II Sehr ruhig.mp3
05 III Sehr lebhaft_Gigue.mp3
06 IV Ausserst langsam.mp3
07 V Leicht_Walzer.mp3
08 VI Sehr langsam.mp3
09 Drei Gedichte von Theodor Daubler, I Dammerung.mp3
10 II Winter.mp3
11 III Oft.mp3
12 Zwei lieder aus geplanten Singspiel Der Schatz des Indianer-Joe nach M Twain, I Totenlied auf den Kater.mp3
13 II Hucks Auftrittslied.mp3
14 Kinderjahr, Sechs Stucke aus op 68 von R Schumann, I Fruhlingsgesang.mp3
15 II Lied italianischer Marinari.mp3
16 III Mai, lieber Mai - Bald bist du wieder da.mp3
17 IV Erinnerung (4 XI 1847 Mendelssohns Todestag).mp3
18 V Winterzeit (II).mp3
19 VI Knecht Ruprecht.mp3

Thanks to Lupi

 

[gorski]

Face it gorski, jazz is great, Acker bilk (happy 80th), Glen Miller, Betty Boop - all great. Fact.

You left your brains behind at birth, it seems to me... You couldn't argue about a point if your very life depended on it...

 

[Knotted]

I do like Adorno. He mistakes his opinions for facts and his tastes for social commentary. He's as entertaining and as throwaway as the target of his criticism.

 

[Mr Moose]

All one need to do is look at John Lennon's song Imagine, to see what Adorno is saying. The Tories actually used the song to open their 1988 conference iirc. This is a song that is supposed to be about peace, love, understanding and all those other hippy values. No one could accuse the Tories of embracing such things, given their abhorrence of all things 60's.

Meaningless - they could have used Schoenberg or Crass if they wanted to.

"DO THEY OWE US A LIVING - CAUSE THEY FUCKIN DO!!"

Many people here in Britain feel understandably that they are owed a living by the country of their birth. We in the conservative party ask not what can your country do for you, but what can you do for your country? We ask you not to revel in unfocussed, impotent anger, but to join a movement that will put this country back on its feet and restore the pride that has abandoned us in the dark days of new labour

 

[butchersapron]

I do like Adorno. He mistakes his opinions for facts and his tastes for social commentary. He's as entertaining and as throwaway as the target of his criticism.

He's rather like Julie Birchall. Without the self-awareness of course.

 

[Mr Moose]

He's rather like Julie Birchall. Without the self-awareness of course.

Sorry - Nothing like as nasty as JB.

 

[nino_savatte]

Meaningless - they could have used Schoenberg or Crass if they wanted to.

"DO THEY OWE US A LIVING - CAUSE THEY FUCKIN DO!!"

Many people here in Britain feel understandably that they are owed a living by the country of their birth. We in the conservative party ask not what can your country do for you, but what can you do for your country? We ask you not to revel in unfocussed, impotent anger, but to join a movement that will put this country back on its feet and restore the pride that has abandoned us in the dark days of new labour

People always give music their own meanings or project meaning onto objects. Though, I am sure that Lennon didn't foresee the Tories appropriating his anthem for their own ends.

 

[Knotted]

He's rather like Julie Birchall. Without the self-awareness of course.

'sright. A point I've made myself indeed!

I actually rather enjoy Adorno when he's talking about music. Boulez-lite opinionated elitism, but at least its opinionated.

 

[butchersapron]

Sorry - Nothing like as nasty as JB.

He's actually far far nastier, just in a more measured tone that allows a lot of stuff to slip by.

 

[Knotted]

Sorry - Nothing like as nasty as JB.

You think?

 

[butchersapron]

'sright. A point I've made myself indeed!

I actually rather enjoy Adorno when he's talking about music. Boulez-lite opinionated elitism, but at least its opinionated.

Shit, did i nick that off you?

 

[Knotted]

Shit, did i nick that off you?

Yeah. Don't worry, I'm flattered.
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=7970661&postcount=622

 

[nino_savatte]

You left your brains behind at birth, it seems to me... You couldn't argue about a point if your very life depended on it...

Aye and if he can't get his own way, he resorts to smears or uttering a load of cryptic bollocks.

 

[Mr Moose]

He's actually far far nastier, just in a more measured tone that allows a lot of stuff to slip by.

You think?

I doubt if Julie Burchill has ever encouraged anyone to consider all people from the standpoint of redemption. Hers is a very black and white world.

Seriously she is nasty. The righteous working class anger is a convenient cover. She's also had 40 years more progressive idealism to draw on.

 

[Knotted]

I doubt if Julie Burchill has ever encouraged anyone to consider all people from the standpoint of redemption. Hers is a very black and white world.

Good for Julie if it were true!! However, she's actually enough of a pyschopath to take the rough with the smooth. I doubt she sees anyone as beyond redemption, but she'd string 'em up anyway.

Seriously she is nasty. The righteous working class anger is a convenient cover. She's also had 40 years more progressive idealism to draw on.

She's nasty and has righteous working class anger. Neither is a cover.

 

[Knotted]

Seriously though. Adorno comes on national television during the Vietnam war to make poisonous sneers about folk protest music. Not nice. More importantly - no perspective. Wanker. Even if I do think he has something of a point...

 

[gorski]

Be good to present it, though... No just your "view" or feelings about it...

 

[phildwyer]

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.

Yes. If anything, you dignify his thoughts on jazz too much. I can't be bothered to dig out the reference or the details, but one of the recent bios claims that he was asked to write on jazz as part of Horkheimer's plot to get him a US visa. So he agreed, even though he knew nothing about the subject.

In any case, it's clear he knows nothing about it from his own writing. He's using it as a synecdoche for commercialized popular culture en tout.

 

[phildwyer]

Seriously though. Adorno comes on national television during the Vietnam war to make poisonous sneers about folk protest music. Not nice. More importantly - no perspective. Wanker. Even if I do think he has something of a point...

On the contrary, what he said needed saying at exactly the moment he said it. The idea that "protest music" had the slightest effect on real politics was pernicious and reactionary. Adorno's point was that *form* is more politically important than *content,* which is absolutely true.

Debord was saying much the same thing in France around the same time, too. Obviously no-one in the English speaking world had any idea what they were on about. Still don't really.

 

[phildwyer]

I doubt if Julie Burchill has ever encouraged anyone to consider all people from the standpoint of redemption.

As a matter of fact she converted to Lutheranism three years ago, and has spent the time since then studying theology. The book she will eventually produce on the subject ought to be rather fascinating.

 

[phildwyer]

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.

Yes he was, he just located resistance in different places than most people. He found Schoenberg and Beckett to be genuine resistance, while he would have found Lennon and Rage Against The Machine to be false resistance. And who can argue with him, really?

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

No, but what you can do is point out the inevitable co-option of such forms by commodification, and the deleterious effect of commodification on aesthetics. This is what we mean when we criticize certain modes of the above forms as "commercialized." This is why Lee Perry is better than UB40. To the degree that commercial considerations impinge on the composition of popular culture, popular culture becomes crap.

Punk is a special case, because the basic ideas of the movement were directly inspired by Adorno, via Debord and the Situationists. So it was more of an intervention in the debate than the subject of the debate.

 

[phildwyer]

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.

It's not an "implication," it's an argument. He finds the commodity form to be the lowest and most degraded mode of human experience in history. And he is quite right: applied to human beings, the commodity form is slavery, or wage slavery. Applied to art, it is the death of art.

 

[gorski]

No, but what you can do is point out the inevitable co-option of such forms by commodification, and the deleterious effect of commodification on aesthetics. This is what we mean when we criticize certain modes of the above forms as "commercialized." This is why Lee Perry is better than UB40. To the degree that commercial considerations impinge on the composition of popular culture, popular culture becomes crap.

Yes, indeed - and moreover, what with atonal jazz, Zappa, critically minded and non-commercially oriented authors...?