ABSTRACT
Theodor Adorno's views on popular music are expressed in many writings, but nowhere more accessibly than in his long essay, "On Popular Music". The basic concepts of Adorno's analysis are the interrelated ones of simplicity and standardization. The tunes, rhythms, and harmonies of popular music, he asserts, are built out of simple, repeatable parts. Adorno also analogizes the omnipresent beat of popular music with hypnosis. A basic form for pop music— and the chief focus of Adorno's discussion— is the thirty-two-measure show tune. The subject matter of popular music is equally simplistic. The topics are the standard sentimental ones— fantasy narratives of love, in which all the real trials of life are magically resolved. Adorno makes pointed comparisons between examples of "classical" and popular music. Adorno believes the comparisons are largely bogus, and that the differences between various pop groups are really superficial. Some popular music— jazz, most notably— uses improvisation as a form of pseudo-individualism.
