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Written by Castor Oyl
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Monday, 11 June 2007 |
Theodor W. Adorno
On Popular Music
With the assistance and collaboration of George Simpson
The Musical Material
The Two Spheres of Music
[1] Popular music, which produces the stimuli we are here investigating, is usually characterized by its difference from serious music. This difference is generally taken for granted and is looked upon as a difference of levels considered so well defined that most people regard the values within them as totally independent of one another. We deem it necessary, however, first of all to translate these so-called levels into more precise terms, musical as well as social, which not only delimit them unequivocally but throw light upon the whole setting of the two musical spheres as well.
[2] One possible method of achieving this clarification would be a historical analysis of the division as it occurred in music production and of the roots of the two main spheres. Since, however, the present study is concerned with the actual function of popular music in its present status, it is more advisable to follow the line of characterization of the phenomenon itself as it is given today than to trace it back to its origins. This is the more justified as the division into the two spheres of music took place in Europe long before American popular music arose. American music from its inception accepted the division as something pre-given, and therefore the historical background of the division applies to it only indirectly. Hence we seek, first of all, an insight into the fundamental characteristics of popular music in the broadest sense. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 11 June 2007 )
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Written by Castor Oyl
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Thursday, 01 March 2007 |
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From: Mythologies by Roland Barthes, translated by Annette Lavers, Hill and Wang, New York, 1984 [Copy-edited and spell-checked by Scott Atkins, September 1995. Tagged in html, October 1995.] MYTH TODAY What is a myth, today? I shall give at the outset a first, very simple answer, which is perfectly consistent with etymology: myth is a type of speech.1 Myth is a type of speech Of course, it is not any type: language needs special conditions in order to become myth: we shall see them in a minute. But what must be firmly established at the start is that myth is a system of communication, that it is a message. This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form. Later, we shall have to assign to this form historical limits, conditions of use, and reintroduce society into it: we must nevertheless first describe it as a form. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 March 2007 )
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Written by Ministrator
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Monday, 09 August 2004 |
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But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the orignial, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence,...illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness. - Ludwig Feuerbach |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 February 2007 )
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