Adorno’s critique of popular music was as a part of his concern for (mainly working class) false consciousness and exploitation, and also part of a sustained analysis concerning hidden fascistic sentiments. His critique rested on certain philosophical foundations of a Freudo-Marxist template and certain concerns with regards to the quality content of popular music and the hidden manipulations behind what Adorno termed "the culture industry". This term was formulated to exclude the possibility of interpreting mass culture as spontaneous or artistic(1), emphasising the exploitative nature of mass musical production, reproduction, promotion, distribution and consumption. Initially we must bear in mind that all art, for Adorno, was non-discursive and so theory is necessary to elucidate the truth content of art. For Adorno, art, and mass music, was directly related to the socio-historical context, though the latter in different ways to the former.

For Adorno, mass music is regressive in its relation to social reality, it does not express pain, therefore it does not confront social reality (in the sense that it does not express any real critique of it), as real art is that which exposes the central meaninglessness of mass culture and the damage caused by modern existence. Art represents the demand for individual freedom from a social reality, which represses desires and defines the conditions for existence. Arts lack of function (its "autonomy") allows it to criticise capitalist society, which threatens to commercialise all areas of life(2). Popular music does not do this; in fact it is a symptom of and perpetuation of this commercialisation. Though, music can develop its own structures of meaning without any direct relation to society (in this sense Adorno can be said to support the concept of "absolute music"), mass music does not do this, it is intricately bound to the social system (and in Adorno’s critique this is specifically the capitalist system) from which it arises. His examination of music in capitalist society is socio-historical. Adorno considers artistic labour to be social labour and that the history of art follows the patterns of socio-historical development, however mass music is different in the sense that it is not art (as it is not socio-critical), and so nor is it of any true social value. In fact, as it is essentially valueless, the culture industry which perpetuates it is a cynical, exploitative giant which "...perpetually cheats it consumers what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and stagings, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached."(3) Adorno considers music to have finally lost any obvious meaning or any worthwhile feeling and this is due to the commercialisation of music by the culture industry. The final loss of meaning is simultaneous with how music has become "popular".

Adorno’s examination of mass music is based on Marx’s formulation of commodity fetishism. The culture industry does not satisfy any real need (this is the basic meaning behind footnote 3), but creates its own need through a "phantasmagoric smokescreen"(4). Commodity fetishism is over-concern, indeed, zealous distraction with the objectified alien world of the products of human labour. The products of labour are objectified due to exploitation, the worker externalises himself in his work, meaning he has objectified the world of production he has laboured in, which then becomes alien and despotic, and so "…the poorer he becomes himself in his inner life… the less he can call his own."(5) This consumerist obsession with commodities is a mistaken values system, where objects are valued more than people, but people are exploited to make these very products. Exploitation necessarily leads to alienation, which is due to the dissatisfaction with life and the enforced nature of work, which depersonalises as a result. "The domination of the thing over man, of dead over living labour, of the product over the producer...at the level of production...we find the same relationship as obtains at the level of ideology...the subject is transformed into object and vice versa."(6) Mass music is part of this alienated fetishism and people will continually support the culture industry in this way – even though it is exploiting them. There are many forms of this music-commodity fetishism, including the worship of the rich and famous performer, the buying up of the latest popular fad and the concern with sound quality and expensive hi-fi equipment.

The culture industry creates its own need through this phantasmagoric smokescreen. The economic law of "supply and demand" is a lie – the culture industry "supplies to create demand" as it were. This smokescreen hides(7) the standardisation and schematisation of pop music and provides pseudo-individualism. Standardisation is the lack of genuine innovation in mass music, the imitation of previous successful formulae. This standardisation represents the conquest of the individual over the general, robbing the consumer of any real satisfaction or autonomy. Schematisation is the second masked trick of the culture industry that perpetuates fetishism. Adorno explains schematisation as serving to negate any individual thought on the part of the consumer, which enforces the tendencies of regressive hearing in the listener. Regressive hearing is "...the decline of the capacity to respond critically and knowledgeably to music..." a decline which parallels the increasing domination of the culture industry.(8) This regressive hearing supports the culture industry’s practise of standardisation, people can only recognise the most catchy tunes, snippets like slogans, the all too familiar beat. "Consumers ‘cannot stand the strain of concentrated listening and surrender themselves resignedly to what befalls them, with which they can come to terms only if they do not listen to it too closely’."(9). Even ‘classical’ music has been commercialised through its presentation to a mass audience not capable of structural hearing, only the experience of melodies and rhythms. The social meaning of this is the domination of individual experience by the needs of industrial capitalism(10).

The hidden imitations and the truncation of individual appreciation are the reasons why mass music promises only a false individuality and a false satisfaction(11). This pseudo-individuality in reality leaves the consumer tricked and unsatisfied, leaving them hungry so that more music will be bought later, but it is music that promises to be better than the last that was bought and of course, it never is. This is part of the creation of need and also the realisation (for Adorno) that mass music is perpetually the same despite apparent changes, which are really only surface changes, changes in the tricks, technicalities, advertisements and stagings of the industry, not the music itself. In a sense mass music is supporting a social and artistic status quo, it is stagnant, redundant, unreflective of itself and its socio-context and uncritical. The regular turnover of fashion and fad is yet another mask by the culture industry to disseminate the impression of change and development. Mass music is essentially ephemeral due to its superficiality, but this superficiality is actually what sells the product as it is promoted using the illusion of originality, but is in fact mere novelty. In this way mass music must satisfy a paradoxical demand, "they have to be ‘fundamentally the same as all the current hits and simultaneously fundamentally different to them’."(12) And so the consumer has the appearance of choice, but is also safe in his decision that any choice will not be unintelligible, therefore he is subject to a false freedom, a sheer pretence, and is in this way exploited. Adorno explains this need for intelligibility through the process of schematisation, as the need for that which is familiar and formulaic, what is easy to listen to, music which does not require much concentration. This is not only due to regressive hearing tendencies (which is a cause and symptom of schematisation) and fetishism, but also due to the mind-numbing nature of repetitive work which treats people like automatons and robs them of any personal satisfaction or feelings of value.(13) Therefore schematisation is rather insidious and cynical device that offers happiness and the fulfilment of wishes, but which in fact prevents these things by guiding individual appreciation down the usual rut, providing stereotypical themes along with the reinforcement of the status-quo and the false sense of liberation and satisfaction. These things together emphasise a narcissistic gain, which fosters a "them and us" mentality through this repetition of clichéd identification with the conventional, which replaces genuine thought and identity. Adorno equated these devices with the methods of Nazi propaganda both use these methods which prompt the least resistance in autonomy and evaluation. In this way the culture industry (mass music) and capitalism is fascistic in its aims.

Adorno’s relationship of music to society is absolutist; he compares it to Leibniz’s monads - that is – as windowless. Music only reflects society in an unconscious sense as it is far removed from society’s concepts. However "Music which has achieved self-consciousness of its social function will enter into a dialectical relation to praxis."(14) The objective social compound of music, its composition or production as a destructive (or rather, critical and suffering-expressive) force is its essence, the selling and buying of music is only epiphenomenon, which is why mass music is sociologically meaningless as part of the commodity epiphenomenon (the superstructure). The true musical subject is of the collective (praxis) and inexhaustible mimetic moments, which express external social reality. But if standardisation is the reflection of the socio-psychological disposition of a capitalist mass, who are restrained in their daily autonomy and creativity and so prefer an inhibited deadened music and if consciousness is therefore made passive and conservative, resulting in the surrender to popular music Adorno describes, doesn’t this mean mass music does have some social meaning and is not just epiphenomenon and in fact reflects the suffering of individuals in society in a more subtle, indeed, ironic way? Furthermore, Bill Ryan elaborates Adorno’s standardisation as a symptom of the growing monopoly on cultural capital, "Under monopoly all mass culture is identical..."(15). But Gendron disagrees that mass music is always essentially the same and that it under goes significant stylistic changes. However Adorno would counter that the changes in stylistic novelty do not reflect an actual change in quality or a turn-about in regressive hearing.

Leaving Adorno’s eurocentricism and hatred of jazz aside as an unfortunate prejudice(16) and settling the debate as to whether music essentially has a cognitive dimension (which Adorno subscribed to) or an expressive dimension to the critique that musical analysis should connect with ordinary listening and criticism (an issue Adorno did not seem to be aware of), otherwise the point of the analysis becomes abstract and disengaged, we must now consider a more important assessment of Adorno’s musical theory.

Adorno considers that technological development has allowed distinctions between production and reproduction (which stress’s the absence of real relation between music’s abstract and music’s sensuous appearance) and the composers thought and musicians interpretation to be electronically blurred. This leads to a tension similar to that found in the culture industry where music becomes its own reproduction (standardisation) and then reproductions are seen as productions (schematisation). However Umberto Eco considers this process as mundane with regards to what he calls the "mass media". He thinks that the mass media is genealogical in its invention, "every new invention sets off a chain reaction of inventions"(17) which produces a common language, this may perhaps be a trend of fads or a genre or a "scene". But paradoxically, this genealogy has "no memory because, when the chain of imitations has been produced, no-one can remember who started it..."(17) This forgetfulness is perhaps due to the constant daily bombardment of the mass media with the "latest" and the most sensational inventions, which do not allow for reminiscence. Eco then raises the question as to why this process does not occur in the traditional arts, which is similar to Adorno’s consideration that esoteric art to be less prone to fetishizing. His assessment has a relation to Adorno’s "de-auraticization" in that differences between "high" and "low" art (or elitist and mass art or esoteric and exoteric art) have integrated and de-differentiated, "temporal relationships have been distorted, the lines of reproduction, the befores and afters."(18) Eco therefore feels that a re-examination of culture is in order, the demand in the ’60’s for one product for the masses and another for the refined has collapsed, or at least been reduced. If we were to except Eco’s claims then Adorno’s critique would need to be re-assessed. Though Adorno feels that mass music is "ever-same", the methods of culture industry may not be. Indeed, Eco explores this implication through his recognition of how ideology is diffuse and elusive (in the tradition of Foucault) and how the "mass media" (or perhaps "the culture industry") is no longer recognisable as one source or authority or power. If Adorno wants to claim that mass culture is fascistic, he needs a clear focus on the controlling power, unless he wants to claim that it is the totality of our culture that is fascistic, though Adorno has often stated that "totality is a lie". Where then now is this culture industry?

If I take Eco’s example of the elusive form of mass media and alter it for the means of this assessment, we can elucidate the problem. A record company produces a new band using the methods Adorno describes and advertises their new album using the usual slogans and tricks, which Adorno recognises. A generation begins to listen to the music and wears the merchandise, the hats, the T-shirts. Consumers of the music advertise, via the band image on their T- shirt. An MTV broadcast, to be faithful to reality, shows some young people wearing the T- shirts and plays the latest single of the band. The young (and old) see the broadcast and buy more records and more T- shirts. Where is the mass medium? Is it the music magazine advertisement, is it the MTV broadcast, is it the T – shirt or the new CD? Here we have not one but two, three, perhaps more mass media. The media have multiplied, but some of them act as media of media, or in other words media squared. And at this point who is sending the message? The record company? The band? Its listener and wearer? The person who talks about it on the TV screen? Who is the producer of ideology? There is no longer Authority, all on its own.(19) Though Adorno’s account fits into the picture to some degree (the methods of production and consumption, consumer fetishism and the recognition of ideology) it is no longer clear how this de-centralised analysis of mass music can equate to a central fascistic dictatorship of ideology. If the culture industry were as cohesive has Adorno assumed (or whether it actually was in the ’60’s) then this analysis of mass culture would be valid in its claims. Now however if we are subject to the kind of ideology Adorno describes then we can only analyse it in a Foucaultian exploration of the inter-actions between various (and incompletely related) institutions. This may in the final analysis support Adorno’s critique, or it may reveal a possibility for a wider individual autonomy moving within the social framework as opposed to sublimated by it. However any analysis is going to raise new questions like: is the individual part of an inescapable mass medium and does this necessarily entail alienation? Is art now subject to this mass medium and is art itself alienated? Is this the reason for a de-differentiation between high and low art? Is every medium now a mass medium and does postmodernism assume a standardisation which is mere epiphenomenon?

• (1) Jay p120
• (2) "Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics" p7
• (3) Jay p121
• (4) Jay p122
• (5) Quoted from K. Marx "Selected Writings" in McLellan p16
• (6) Marx "Selected Writings" in McLellan p25
• (7) Marxists differentiate between the base of society which is the Marxist term for socio-economic conditions, and the superstructure, which is everything else including religion, conventional morality, art, philosophy, etc, all of which are ideologies. These ideologies mask the base, cloaking the realities of the human condition, resulting in alienation. The culture industry is also an ideology, as part of the superstructure and also in that it provides only a false sense of consciousness. Adorno’s description of mass musical dissatisfaction is, then, in my view a description of alienation.
• (8) Jay p139
• (9) Cook p41
• (10) "Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics" p7
• (11) This consideration of false emotion reminds one of Plato’s concerns with the poets as a medium of moral corruption. "If you consider that the poet gratifies and indulges the instinctive desires of a part of us, which we forcibly restrain in our private misfortunes, with its hunger for tears and for uninhibited indulgence in grief. Our better nature, being without adequate intellectual or moral training, relaxes its control over these feelings... For very few people are capable of realising that what we feel for other people must infect what we feel for ourselves, and that if we let pity for the misfortunes of others grow too strong it will be difficult to restrain our feelings in our own." (Plato "The Republic" p374-5 Penguin classics).
• (12) Cook p42
• (13) This exploitation is explained by the Marxist Theory of Surplus Value – the worker lacks Capital, so he forced to sell his labour as a commodity. The difference between the amount of economic value he produces and the amount he receives for this is "surplus value". The employer takes the surplus value for himself. This is exploitation for profit and the source of social conflict and alienation.
• (14) Jay p 137
• (15) Cook p40
• (16) Which perhaps a reading of Herman Hesse’s "Steppenwolf" may have solved for our exiled philosopher?
• (17) Eco p146
• (18) Eco p146
• (19) Eco p147
• (20) This example is a modified example of that which appears in Eco p148-9

Bibliography

Cook, D. – The Culture Industry Revisited, (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1996)

Cooper, D. E., (ed) – An Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics (Blackwell 1992)

Benjamin, A. – The Problems of Modernity, (Routledge1989)

Eco, U. – Travels in Hyper-Reality, (Picador 1986)

Jay, M. – Adorno, (Fontana Press 1984)

Marx, K and Engels, F. – K. Marx and F. Engels on Religion, (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1957)

McLellan, D. – Marxism and Religion, (The Macmillan Press Ltd 1987)

Plato. – The Republic, (Penguin Classics 1989)