Check out this short video posted just days before our discussion of Adorno & Horkheimer and their hand-wringing about pop music. The video presents information A&H would be down with, claiming that pop music is endlessly repetitive. The kicker, though, is that this mind-numbing repetition is not the direct work of our capitalist overlords — it's our own fault. Well, our own choice.
Participation! Consider the consumer choice discussed in this video's claims. How free are we to choose? How has Internet data illuminated this? And what would Adorko & Jerkheimer say about this: are our choices really our own?
6 Comments
PUI TING CHOW Angel
12/9/2014 09:51:45 am
According to the video, pop music is so bad, shallow and repetitive. We demand the same song over and over again as familiar music are easier for the brain to process. We like repetitive music because it helps makes our mind clear and easy. In my opinion, I think we have a lot of freedom to choose the kind of music we like if there is various kinds of music available. However, music producers nowadays tend to produce music that would be liked by audience to earn the maximum profit they can. Music producers sometimes produce music just to make money. As a result, they would choose not to introduced some special, unique music, which is considered not easily accepted by the public because the more the music is easy to follow, the higher the tendency that people would like it. On the other hand, the Internet is also helping pop music to become more and more repetitive. Almost all of the top 10 music are easy music, and those songs would even be more popular after they are promoted by the Internet. Adorko & Jerkheimer would not agree that we can actually have the choice to choose the music we like. In their perspectives, they think that pop music is a standardized production of music, which is quick to satisfy easy pleasure of the public. At the same time, the production of pop music also suppresses the creativity of people, and as a result, they may think that pop music as art because it is not created with creativity and freedom.
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Taylor Danna
12/11/2014 12:32:17 pm
The Atlantic posted a video showing statistics based on music. It is louder and less varied, however they show that this is our own choice. By tracking our behavior and using democracy to run the music industry we are all falling victim to listening to the same songs on repeat. I found it interesting that they said we enjoy things more when we use less effort because I can actually see that happening around me and first hand. Watching TV for example, the lights and noise make it nearly impossible to think for yourself and all you have to do is sit down and open your eyes. Similar, music is now so repetitive that it all sounds the same and listening to the radio is almost like a meditation in itself. I believe that this video is saying we do have the freedom to choose however we are not using our voice in an active manner. Instead we listen to the same songs and we rank them and continue to listen to the top hits. What I find troubling is that in democracy the voters that do not have the majority have less of a say. It is the same thing here, for the people that enjoy mainstream music that or songs similar to every single song out there, they are rarely looked upon from the industry. Internet data has illuminated this by promoting hit lists and publicizing the billboard 100 where people can go to see what others like and in turn promote the same music. By promoting the same type of music we are becoming more robotic and not encouraging individuality, which is detrimental to our society. Adorko & Jerkheimer would say our choices not really our own because commercialization has taken over our society and limited the people that have different opinions from the masses. They believe that the beauty of art is being lost within our culture due to our democracy of liking things that leave us with no thought, such as our music choices.
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Allison Diroll
12/14/2014 05:30:15 am
According to The Atlantic, the variation of the top pop songs have decreased in variance and increased in volume and repetitiveness. According to this video, the listeners are to blame. I agree when the video speaks about familiarity, and it makes me think about what we spoke about in section a couple weeks ago, when computers were made to represent real objects, making it more similar and therefore accepted by the public. People are not very accepting of change, because familiarity is so comforting. We can see that on television as well, as there is now a surge of mindless reality shows that lack creativity and art that has been seen in the past. If we go back to what Adorko and Jerkheimer spoke about in their article, monopolies suppress artistic possibilities, and set a very limited framework to be followed. The people follow and enjoy these frameworks, and the reproduction then continues. In my opinion, I would disagree to some extent that the people are the reason for the repetitiveness and lack of creativity we find in pop music, given the limited range of possibilities that are given to the public to begin with. Because the monopolies have set the framework supposedly based off of the peoples needs, when in reality they are further manipulating the public into thinking they need another song just like their favorite. All this does is create a circle of regurgitation and familiarity. The public technically is partaking in this limitation of pop music, but not necessarily out of will, but rather obliviousness. If the people were given a larger variety of choices, there may be also less repetition.
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Eleanor Chen
12/16/2014 05:05:45 pm
According to the Atlantic video, we are the reason why pop music is what it is today. It claims how in the past, what was played on the radio was not really our choice as the big music labels chose which songs specifically would become pop hits. However, with expanding technology, the music industry has developed systems in which they can glean information from consumers to create and produce music that is to our liking. I agree with the fact that our freedom of choice in what music we want to listen to has expanded significantly in the past decade with music we can find and listen to not merely on the radio. With underground artists, we have access to music that may not necessarily fit into what is popular. However, because we have been fed so much of the same music, we tend to gravitate towards what we know and are familiar with, whether or not it is actually what we would consider the best. In this way, sales for these popular songs are boosted and the music industry continues to produce the same songs as society continues to listen to the same songs. Adorno and Horkheimer would not agree with the video's claims that the music industry still allows us to choose our popular songs, but rather that we are force fed what to like and what not to. Though true in some aspects, such as what we hear on the radio may not directly be a result of the music we as individuals listen to, we still have access and opportunities to seek music that does not fit what typically is played on the radio.
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Janice K Yu
12/16/2014 06:02:01 pm
According to the video, we, as consumers, are responsible for the repetitive, unoriginal, and bad music that is produced today. I never really thought of pop music in that sense, that we have so much control over what gets produced these days. I think that we have a lot of freedom to choose the music we like and what we want to listen to, but at the same time,it's difficult to choose when the options are so limited. A lot of pop music these days sound the same and are not the best quality anymore. But, I think to put completely blame on the consumers for this is unfair. For me, I hate the pop music that has been recently produced, but because that is all that's being produced, I feel like I have no choice but to listen to it. In terms of choosing what music we like, we can't really make a clear decision of what we like if all of our options are mediocre. For example, when viewers vote on their favorite songs or artists for some award show, there are only so many songs to choose from. Also, a lot of the time, record producers will throw out just about anything that they can make profit out of, even if it is a terrible song. Internet Data has illuminated our freedom of choice by showing the top hits and what consumers like to hear, but how accurate are these top hits and who exactly is choosing them? Adorno and Horkheimer would say that our choices are not exactly our own. They would say that these record companies are making these decisions to produce repetitive music on their own, and that we have no say in what kind of creativity goes into these productions. They might also claim that these record companies are simply producing the same kind of stuff knowing that it's been successful before so that they can continue making a profit.
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Faith Garcia
12/17/2014 06:08:00 am
The reality of our music choices today is that we have become lazy. Adorno and Horkheimer would argue that we cannot/would not be able to choose what we would like to listen to. Media forces what they want down our throats and we apparently have no say in the matter whatsoever. I would tend to not agree with that argument. People are still people and therefore still have individual personalities and thought processes. some may be as said more lazy than others and won't go look for new interesting music. While others who are a bit more adventurous will seek out those subcultured musics and styles. Now however, the music industry has found what is easiest to produce and have stuck with that. Unfortunately, rather than seeking for new and different genres many tend to just go with the flow. This ends up with everyone blaring their car radios to the same T-Swift song as everyone else.
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