Jean Baudrillard

Task Two

Task two: Quickly read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music'. In no more than a few paragraphs, summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on key points such as 'standardisation', 'psuedo-individualisation' etc.

Adorno explains the way he see's popular music is based around standardization, where the "chorus consists of thirty-two bars and that the range is limited to one octave and one note". This form of standardization is based around the structure of the music and giving the same familiar experience.

From the structural standardization it leeds to the standard reactions described by Adorno ,"into a responce mechanisms wholly antagonistic to the ideal of individuality in a free, liberal society." The reactions from the popular music is almost predetermined. The effects on the individual is for music to escape things we don't like doing, and also from the way it is produced and designed enter into a false world from pop music, pseudo-individualization.

He also mentions mass culture, the less people disappointed, the easier to sell the product, disguised using ideology. For the emotional spectator there is wishful fulfillment. "They consume music in order to be allowed to weep"