Adorno said that “the whole structure of popular music is standardized,” that it was symptomatic of the politically and aesthetically destructive nature of the capitalist mode of production. The industry is an all-consuming production line that churns out mass produced inferior commodities. One of the biggest popular musical events of the modern era is The X Factor. Simon Cowell builds up new popular music ‘stars’ who exhibit part-interchangeability and pseudo-individualization, they all fit into the same cookie-cutter model, singing old songs that have been re-versioned. Winner Joe McElderry sang The Climb by Miley Cyrus which was written for her by an employee of Columbia records.
However, the “production” side of the music industry is becoming less important with the infiltration of the internet, where popular music that hasn’t been created by a massive record label is becoming more freely available. So maybe popular music is moving back to becoming a more genuine art form than we have seen recently.
This is an interesting, reasonable individual take on Adorno's critique but I feel it would have been given more weight by the inclusion of Gendron's contrary ideas.
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