“I believe, in fact, that attempts to bring political protest together with ‘popular music’—that is, with entertainment music—are for the following reason doomed from the start.The entire sphere of popular music, even there where it dresses itself up in modernist guise, is to such a degree inseparable from past temperament, from consumption, from the cross-eyed transfixion with amusement, that attempts to outfit it with a new function remain entirely superficial.
“I have to say that when somebody sets himself up, and for whatever reason sings maudlin music about Vietnam being unbearable, I find that really it is this song that is in fact unbearable, in that by taking the horrendous and making it somehow consumable, it ends up wringing something like consumption-qualities out of it.”
- Theodor Adorno, 1968, televised interview, with imagery of Vietnam War and Joan Baez singing "Oh, Freedom".
“Cross-eyed transfixion with amusement” haha!
ReplyDeleteI mean: he’s not entirely wrong. But I think it would be hard to argue that the counter-culture, with music at the heart of it, played no part in ending American involvement in Vietnam.
The harsh take on Adorno would be to say it’s the difference between theoretical and practical politics. Interpreting the consumption-qualities of pop songs may be fine if you want to understand the world. Music with mass appeal is essential if you want to change it.
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