Two records open with different sounds. One begins with a guitar and a voice close to the microphone. The other opens with a bright keyboard and a chorus of backing singers. After the introductions, both move through much the same pattern of verses, refrains and instrumental breaks. A listener can have good reasons to prefer one. Theodor W. Adorno asks what kind of choice the difference gives that listener, and which decisions about the song have already been made.
What does standardization mean?
In On Popular Music, written with the assistance of George Simpson and published in 1941, Adorno describes standardization as a relation between the parts of a song and its whole. A phrase can lead into a chorus we have already learned to anticipate, even on a first hearing. A break can draw attention to itself while arriving in exactly the place the form has prepared for it. The point is about how a song is organized and how a listener comes to recognize its organization.
A repeated form can be a resource for performers as well as a commercial convention. For Adorno, the question is what the form asks of the detail. Could an unusual break change how we hear the rest of the song? Or is it there to mark one version of a pattern whose course is already settled?
What is pseudo-individualization?
Pseudo-individualization is the work done by those distinguishing features. A voice, an arrangement or a performer’s persona can make a record immediately recognizable. Adorno argues that the record can thereby acquire the appearance of individuality even when the broader structure remains standardized. He discusses improvisation as one place to look for that tension. A break can sound spontaneous while staying within a framework listeners and musicians already know.
Return to the two records. One might be sold as intimate and the other as exuberant. The descriptions capture differences people can hear. They also encourage us to choose among versions of a familiar experience. Adorno’s distinction directs attention both to what varies and to the commercial reasons why some parts of the experience are kept in place.
How does this connect to the culture industry?
In The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Adorno and Max Horkheimer ask how financing, distribution and repetition organize entertainment more broadly. The music essay makes the question audible at the level of a song. You can test the distinction by listening for where the refrain arrives, what the arrangement changes and whether that change alters how the song unfolds.
There is also a question about what happens after a record circulates. Simon Frith’s account of popular music asks how listeners use musical conventions to make sense of feelings and social situations. An account of what a market makes available can be read alongside an account of what people do with it.
Further reading · Culture Industry Explained Simply · Culture Industry Reconsidered · Read On Popular Music
