ABSTRACT
Adorno is interested in the social power of dissemination, which he writes about quite technically as “reproduction,” 1 both of music, qua “the music,” or as such as well as its reproduction on every level, especially with respect to the listener. As Susan McClary reminds us, as does Robert Hullot-Kentor with a different emphasis, Adorno remains “the only major cultural theorist of the century whose primary medium was music, as opposed to literature, film, or painting.” 2 In musicology as in philosophy, and cultural theory in general, Adorno is a commonplace, and as is common enough with commonplaces, Adorno is more often reacted to than he is read, especially where, as noted, it tends to be assumed that when it came to popular music, he was “simply wrong,” 3 a claim that endures, despite decades of efforts at refutation. 4
