Does Pop Music Make Us Dumber?

I have to admit, I had never really thought too hard about pop music before Wednesday's class. My iTunes library is pretty varied - I'm into a lot of different stuff and I just sort of listen to what I like. 

But after listening to the discussion of Theodor Adorno's ideas about popular music, I took a closer look at my collection. Even the stuff I don't consider "pop" - the Smiths, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Pixies - follows that same verse-hook-bridge structure of pop songs. Adorno thinks that popular music is standardized (i.e. follows a repetitive pattern), promotes passive listening, and acts as "social cement," either distracting us away from real problems or miring us in sentimentality. This view of popular music is pretty pessimistic; does it make us into passive escapists, unwilling and unable to appreciate "real" culture?

I would argue that pop music (if you include rock and hip hop) has made from bubblegum formula to art in the past 50 years. A Tribe Called Quest's melding of hip hop and jazz was innovative and required attentive and knowledgeable listening, even though it's technically pop. I guess Pink Floyd's concept albums are also considered "pop," but they're endowed with an overarching vision and cohesion (not to mention artistry) lacking from, say, a Britney Spears album. 

It's too general to classify everything besides classical and jazz as pop music, and then say that pop music does nothing more than pacify and constrain us. There's a difference between innovative, fresh pop and the derivative Top 40 pop on the radio, and I argue that some pop music scales the same artistic heights as really great jazz or classical. Adorno's view seems kind of dated and elitist to me.