Popular Music

In my last post I tried to defend kitsch against what I saw as Greenberg's elitism. Now, I have to eat my words and agree with Theodor Adorno that popular music isn't really helping any of us culturally. I have to admit that I have an incredible amount of bias here. On the one hand I think that pop culture (kitsch) has brought us amazing books, comics, TV shows, and movies despite the fact that many critics (or in my opinion, elitists) believe it is cultural trash. While on the other hand I believe that most popular music that we hear today provides us with nothing more than something fun to dance to (which isn't necessarily a bad thing! It might be a genuinely redeeming quality of pop music). I think the difference between a lot of other pop culture and pop music is that I think the standards and the quality of a lot of entertainment has improved and that more consumers are looking at their entertainment with an increasingly critical eye. However with music, I feel that the quality has only gotten worse and that listeners are not challenged to get anything substantial out of the experience of listening to pop music.

It is important to note that there are exceptions to all rules--something I think Adorno doesn't acknowledge-- just because a particular song follows a format doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't have substance. One of the reasons I would agree that popular music today promotes passive listening is due to the performances and persona's of the artists:













To be honest, I just don't see why music and lyrics that are meant to be taken seriously and considered thoughtfully would need performers to dress up to such an extent as to distract the audience from the music itself. Is it just me or do these ladies seem like they really don't want you to be listening intently to what it is they are sing about?