Theodor Adorno was a Marxist philosopher who wrote about popular music in the mid-20th century. He believed that popular music was not "true art" like opera, and that it was created by music companies to manipulate and fool the lower classes into passively consuming meaningless music without questioning it, while giving them false hopes and replacing their real needs. Other theorists since have argued that Adorno's view was too pessimistic and dismissed the audiences' ability to actively engage with popular music.

1. Popular Culture
Many groups of Marxist Philosopher based in Germany in middle 20 th century used
the theories of popular music in their work. They were troubled with the role of
popular culture taking advantage of lower-class masses (people) while the
bourgeoisie (higher-class) maintained power.
Theodor Adorno was one of the first to write a theory about popular music. He
believed popular music was the opposite of true art.
Bourgeoisie – True Art being Opera, high-class, intelligent, ect
Masses – Popular Culture being Music Festivals, lower-class, ect
He believed masses were not smart enough to question the music they listened to
while bourgeoisies questioned what they listened to, by the way it sounds, lyrics,
and the artist’s class.
He believed the music companies fed their music to the popular culture as they
easily digest the music they listen to not questioning its content.
True Art Popular Music
Bourgeoisie: Sophisticated, Harmony, Mass: Aimless, Nonsense,
Beautiful; makes people question the unsophisticated; large amount of
music in style and content. people consume the music but don’t
question it.
His message was that popular music is leading people to be unsophisticated and
naïve as they are being fooled by nonsense and are not consuming true art which
is classier. He also believed it gives us false hope for example rap giving us the
false hope of being rich, having designer clothes and women. Although they
create the needs we want we feel satisfied, as wee feel we are progressing to
that goal slowly by buying expensive products and acting like the artist. Although

2. these needs replace our real needs and real goals in life it removes freedom and
creativity.
Popular music products are characterised by:
Standardisation – same basic formulaic and similar (verse, chorus, verse).
Pseudo – Individualisation (incidental differences make them seem distinctive but
they’re not) as all the music is the same and false.
Culture industry
Products of the culture industry may be emotional or apparently moving, although
Adorno sees this as cathartic, we might seek some comfort in sad film or song,
have a bit of cry, and then feel restored again.
Dick Hebdige:
More modern theorists have tended to view Adorno ideas as overly pessimistic
and dismissive of mass audiences as passive and easily manipulated. Dick
Hebdige argues that consumption is an