On The Fetish-Character In Music And The Regression Of Listening

As a member of the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno both remembered and became nostalgic for a life before mass commercialization. As a witness to the role of propaganda and mass production in Germany during both World Wars and the invention of the printing press, piano roll, phonograph, radio, and Tin Pan Alley, Adorno passionately challenged the place of mass communication within society. As worried as Adorno was about mass culture undermining individualism in the twentieth century, he would be outraged at the role that mass culture, particularly streaming services, plays in twenty-first century society and its influence on a person’s individuality and listening skills. Streaming services have become widely popular in the last several years.

Streaming services work in such a way that directly sacrifices individuality because the algorithms used, lead the listener to assume that they are discovering their own tastes; however, they instead are being manipulated to acquire the “tastes” of the masses (Ratliff; Adorno 280). Adorno further argues that manipulation of taste “leads to the manipulation of … the official culture’s pretense of individualism” (280). Not only would Adorno argue that streaming services manipulate one’s individuality, but also one’s ability to listen to the music

The same could be said about the modern listening practices of the twenty-first century, especially listeners utilizing streaming services. As listeners using streaming services become more and more engrossed in the same type of music being mindlessly played to them per the algorithm, they lose the awareness that accompanies worthwhile listening practices. As the listeners continue to listen in this manner, Adorno argues that the listener begins to “fluctuate between comprehensive forgetting and sudden drives into recognition” (286). Streaming services allow for perhaps the ultimate “comprehensive forgetting” listening methods because they utilize predictable, genre-based playlists in such a way that is not distracting; perhaps, even allowing one to forget music is playing at all