[ Adorno on Music's Commodification ]

Adorno was a German philosopher and composer who's unorthodox Marxist and Freudian thoughts lead to the generation of the term 'culture industry'. Adorno suggests that consumers of popular music are preoccupied and distracted by their personal social impact of their musical preferences or fetishes.(Adorno, 1963, p49) Consumers of Popular music are said to be blind to standardisation settling on music's diversity through whatever is thrown at them. They are owned by the music itself and are often deceived into thinking that a mass produced product can be an individual prize, that a piece of music is made to satisfy the consumer's individual need. It is through this deception and blind obedience in exchange for social status however that commodities are born. (Adorno, 1963 p40-50)

Adorno also argued that music's dream fufillment or "liberation" is another profit hungry intention that again tries to pry away at individuals dream goals whilst its nature of being a universal dream for the majority of its consumers is disguised by its personal connection with the listener. Minor intervals and sorrowful music is favoured by producers for having stronger emotive reactions and personal relatability which leads back to the music being falsely forced into a part of the consumer's personality through homogenizing available pop music. (Adorno, 1963, p38-52) David Huron helps to illustrate this falsified appreciation through his notes on Adorno "the prisoner who loves his cell because he has been left nothing else to love". (David Huron, web)

 Cook brings to light that many think Adornos work on the culture industry is "superficial and vague" and that through his perspective Adorno's view on higher culture is elitist and his views on the culture industry have "frequently come under attack". She points out Fredrick Jameson's argument against Adorno saying his view on high art, the non commodified other half of entertainment, is given the role of "eternal standards"(cook, 106) This contradicts Adorno's thesis on mass culture, as Jameson points out Adorno himself is influenced by his nature as a composer and the fact that he has a standardised view on how music 'should be'. Cook highlights another one of Adorno's self contradictions to do with the commodification of the culture industry, she mentions that Adorno's view on the "complete subsumption" (cook 113) of the culture industry is "implicitly contradicted" . Adorno's "sweeping generalizations" are easy to argue against. he does it himself by stating that film "has retained individual forms of production"(cook 113). But why debate on the commodification of culture when even high arts are becoming subject to commodification, what is left of art if art is never made for just art's sake even if pop music can retain its forms of production Marxist views on fetishisms overrule this as the consumer of a non commodified (if there is such a thing) product can kickstart its commodification through increasing its popularity. Once valued by the individual, is then valued by multiple individuals who then influence even more individuals until all original value is lost through the commodities social status and its subjective intrinsic value becoming objective to the producers thus, making more products similar for mass market consumption. Does this then lead to design work for such 'new' commodities being standardised in order to visually relate to the original commodity.



Huronhttp://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Music839B/Approaches/Adorno.htmlDavid Huron)