Max Paddison

The critique criticised: Adorno and popular music

Adornos critique of popular music is generally considered the least convincing aspect of his otherwise impressive analysis of the predicament of Western music in the twentieth century. The immediate reasons as to why his views on popular music are difficult to accept are obvious enough, and it must be admitted that the usual criticisms – that Adorno is prejidiced, arrogant and uniformed in this field contain more than a grain of truth. However, my intention here is not to add anything new in the way of invective, nor is it to attack Adornos basic thesis regarding the dilemma facing twentieth-century culture as a whole. Instead, I propose to offer some suggestions as to how Adornos writings on popular music may be approached so that the end result is something more than outright dismissal of his extreme and often dogmatic value judgements. It is an attempt to rescue the baby from the bath water, so to speak, as it seems to me that hidden in his theory there remains a potential which was never properly recognised by Adorno.

Der kritisierte Kritiker

Adornos Kritik der popularen Musik gilt als der Teil seiner ansonsten so beeindruckenden Analyse des Dilemmas der westlichen Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, der am wenigsten uberzeugt. Warum seine Sicht der popularen Musik nur schwer zu akzeptieren ist, scheint auf der Hand zu liegen; und es lasst sich nicht leugnen, dass die gangige Kritik, Adorno sei auf diesem Gebiet voreingenommen, arrogant und uninformiert gewesen, mehr als nur ein Funkchen Wahrheit enthalt. Ich habe jedoch nicht die Absicht, den ublichen Beschimpfungen weitere hinzuzufugen oder Adornos Grundthese zum Dilemma der Kultur des 20. Jahrhunderts als Ganze anzugreifen.

Art and the Concept of Autonomy in Adorno’s Kant Critique

This chapter examines the concept of aesthetic autonomy in the context of Adorno’s critical aesthetics and in relation to the writings on art and aesthetics of other members of the Frankfurt School such as Benjamin, Marcuse, Habermas and Wellmer. It does this against the background of the broader Kantian Enlightenment concept of the autonomy of the individual. The historical emergence of the concept and of its relation to art and the work concept in the West, together with its present problems, is outlined and a critique of ahistorical readings of “autonomous art” is offered, in particular the perennial problems in aesthetics to do with meaning and interpretation. The case is argued for “critique through form,” underlying which is a mediated relation to the excluded social other. It is also argued that this “critical” dimension of autonomous art survives even the disintegration of the work concept that has become historically inseparable from it.

Book Review: The Spheres of Music: A Gathering of EssaysMeyerLeonard B., The spheres of music: A gathering of essays. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN0-226-52153-2; (cloth) ISBN0-226-52154-0, X + 316 pp.

in that they account for only some attributes of the natural world. [...J Works of art, on the other hand, are presentational patterns that, like phenomena in the worlds of nature and human behavior, may be the occasion for experiences that are found to be