According to Adorno, people enjoy music in the most unsophisticated way possible. Popular music also has this feature for Adorno of creating pseudo-individualism. All pop music is verse chorus verse. The chorus is the same every time. It has a completely regular and repetitive rhythm. Everything is composed in one octave. You can just predict what will come next once you've heard enough of it.
Two records from 1983 achieved minor novelty fame, and then faded away, only to emerge 20 years later as the originators of a curious genre of pop music in the age of social media. This peculiar genre raises questions about how we should think about genre, musical aesthetics, and artistry in the time of industrially-produced music and digital reproduction. Guest voices include Jordan Roseman, aka DJ Earworm, Steve Stein, aka Steinski, philosopher Chris Bartel, and musicologist Christine Boone.
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