Contestants and Capitalism

In class yesterday, we discussed Theodor Adorno and his criticism of popular music. Adorno defines popular music with a few characteristics, including: standardized, pseudo-individual, and capitalized. In other words, Adorno believes popular music is easy to make for the producers and easy to listen to for the audience. This “mass culture” approach also ties the concept into capitalism, because if the masses keep listening to this popular music, then we will remain in the same place, which is what is wanted from us. The example that came to my head was of televised singing competitions. Like popular music, the gist of these shows is basically the same. On The Voice, American Idol, The X Factor, etc, aspiring artists audition for the show and then spend a couple weeks/months performing (sometimes) live shows until they are either eliminated or win the competition. Using Adorno’s framework, the shows are standardized. While the competitions differ in certain ways, like The Voice’s blind auditions, the structure and content of all of these shows are incredibly similar. The contestants have to audition with a song they chose and then, if they are liked by 3 or 4 judges, they move on to higher rounds and the shows become elaborate productions. The aspect of pseudo-individualism also comes into play, since these different networks and channels offer their shows exclusively and reel the audience in by advertising the competition as “Nothing like you’ve ever seen before!” Adorno’s definition of pseudo-individualism is “endowing cultural mass production with the halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardization itself.” These singing competition shows, and also variety and talent shows, regurgitate the same ideas and content to the mass, but add bells and whistles to make themselves seem new and original.