Adorno's Theory of Pop Culture
Theodor Adorno (born 1903 in Prussia) was a German sociologist, philosopher and composer. Adorno was best known for his ideas on the divide in society between popular culture and "true art". This formed a class divide based on how people enjoyed music depending on their classes. His work was heavily influenced by Marxist theories, the creator of which (Karl Marx) went to the same school as Adorno, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Adorno, along with other Marxist philosophers, represents the first attempt at writing about popular music.
In order to actually summarise the society and class divide when it came to popular culture, Adorno created this triangle:
The above triangle represents the structure of the music industry. The smaller triangle is the ruling class, known as the "bourgeoisie", consisting of politicians, MP's and other wealthy people in society, referred to as the "social elite". They are fans of what is known as true art, appreciating and understanding classical music or artwork more than the "masses", made up of working class citizens in society, seen as too dumb or politically apathetic to appreciate this classical music or art, meaning pop music is essentially reduced down to something that can be easily enjoyed by all without much thought being required to fulfil enjoyment.
Popular culture is a term that was coined by Adorno as a result of this, referring to standardised production used in order to manipulate a mass society into passivity. Because the "masses" are unable to enjoy or understand "true art", the bourgeoisie have formulated a division between the two cultures in terms of what they consume. The masses, being at the bottom of the triangle, intake popular culture without realising the similarity of the songs and their ideas. Below are three examples of songs from popular culture with lyrics about the same themes:
(L-R: Alessia Cara and Zedd's "Stay", Selena Gomez's "Bad Liar" and Dua Lipa and Martin Garrix's "Scared To Be Lonely" all focus on the theme of loneliness or a breakdown of a relationship, a common theme in other songs.)
Popular media and music products become standardised, meaning that they are all similar, as if they are factory productions. Pseudo-individualisation is also a common theme in popular media, where songs appear to differ, but really feature the same themes and ideas as other songs in that particular market. The three songs above sound incredibly different in terms of backing tracks and tempo, for example, but the lyrics all discuss a relationship, which is an incredibly commonplace theme in modern-day society and pop music.
True art, on the other hand, is known as the entertainment of the Bourgeoisie. It differs from the entertainment of the masses as it includes musical genres like jazz or classical, as well as comprising art galleries or museums in its realms, due to the fact that the content of these organisations have a historical background that the masses may not have been educated in thoroughly. The masses will consume their entertainment through more readily available media forms like film and music, meaning they don't have access to the entertainment of the Bourgeoisie; culture is therefore dumbed down for this reason in order to cater to the inadequate levels of knowledge that the masses possess as a result of a poorer education.
In between the division on the triangle above of the classes, there is individuals of hegemony. These are popstars who construct a false idea of the world by creating dumbed-down ideologies for the masses through their music. These individuals can be seen as puppets of the Bourgeoisie, as their output into society is controlled by what the more important people wish to be shown in society. Popular culture through popstars blocks access to "true art" as these false ideologies remain in the charts, capturing the attention of the masses, and it can be thought that the stars who are controlled by these social elites will form relationships with their fans in order to keep up the ignorance of this hegemony.
Applying Adorno's theory of popular culture to music videos, the first one I looked at was Nicki Minaj's 2010 single "Super Bass". Nicki Minaj, a rap/hip-hop artist (born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad and Tobago) has a music video which features imagery commonplace in many hip-hop music videos: shirtless men, women gyrating on the screen in revealing outfits, and a swimming pool where a party is taking place. This therefore renders the music video as a societal norm, allowing the audience to view it without much thought into the imagery in front of them.
The second music video I looked at was BØRNS' "American Money", released in 2016 from his debut album "Dopamine". The first notable difference between this and "Super Bass" is the imagery involved: Garrett Borns uses a recurring motif of a moth, in a way to signify death (the storyline of the music video appears to be that of the female dying after what looks like a car accident, and then taking the male with her into the afterlife), which sets it apart from other videos of the same genre as it requires thought into the events themselves, which I thought classed this as a video worthy of a "true art" title.
However, with every good theory that exists, there will always be criticisms that can be drawn from that theory. One way that Adorno's theory can be criticised is the outdated nature of the theory itself: Adorno had formulated this theory in the 1950s, at a time where popular music was only just beginning to become a more commonplace thing in contemporary society, and the idea that only the upper-classes listen to classical music or jazz music is of that time and that time alone. Many teenagers will listen to these genres of music now in order to aid study (and scientific studies have proven that these genres do help with study itself), as well as pursuing higher education in classical studies, meaning that what was once purely associated with the Bourgeoisie has become a societal norm for many teens of the 21st century.
Another contemporary critique of this theory is the existence of subcultures within the masses (see the post here about subgenres and subcultures in music for more about subcultures), meaning that it is wrong to describe them as all being the same. True art is also a subjective term, as is all art whether it be contemporary, fine or linguistic, so it is impossible to categorise something completely as true art due to differing opinions on what that may be. Lastly, pluralist sociologists believe that the media does not manipulate consumers, instead that it is market-driven, meaning it focuses on what the consumers actually want.
More modern theorists have seen Adorno's views on popular culture as overly pessimistic, as well as being dismissive of mass audiences as passive and easily manipulated. Dick Hebdige, one of these theorists, argues that consumption is an active process that involves differences in audience's social and ideological construction leading to different views on how something is perceived. As such, this allows the audience the ability to resist these mass corporations, forming their own subcultures that go against society's norms. The company response to this is to create products that these people will consume, assimilating to their ideals, and then it is up to the people once more to decide whether they will conform to these products or go even further against the company's wishes.