Thursday, 6 March 2008
week 3 - Is popular music a commodity or an art?
Adorno claims that the popular music industry is an 'all consuming production line that churns out mass produced inferior commodities'. He hints that no music is original and that it is a 'commodity', all the same kind of thing sold in different packaging. He looks at part interchangability, used to streamline production costs and pseudo individualization which he says is used to provide the illusion of uniquesness necessary to market a commodity that is essentially the same as a host of others. However, I believe popular music is an art, and would argue against Adornos point. I dont believe that what the likes of Oasis and Westlife produce is just the same thing in a different form, and i dont believe that just anyone can pick up a pen and write songs of that quality. I believe you are born with the talent to be a musician, and what musicians write and produce is an art, because an art is something that people do that is unique, and that not a lot of people can produce.
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Some would argue that the advent of digital technology has made the ability to create music less of a God given talent and more of a learned skill, whether this makes its product any less of an art form is another question. A reasonable summary of Adorno and a fairly interesting take on the art commodity debate.
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