Adorno #2

"The more totally the culture industry roots out all deviations, thus cutting off the medium from its intrinsic possibilities of development, the more the whole blaring dynamic business approaches a standstill. Just as no piece of jazz can, in a musical sense, be said to have a history, just as all its components can be moved about at will, just as no single measure follows from the logic of the musical progression--so the perennial fashion becomes the likeness of a planned congealed society"(124-125, Perennial Fashion--Jazz)

I think that this conception Adorno has of jazz and the way in which it is really but the victim of the culture industry and its economic forces can be applied to most edm music. Taking Adorno's perspective, both edm and jazz have no creative agency or autonomy, rooted not in expression and the dynamism of that, but rather of the economic forces of the culture industry which has found a formula and anchors every sound to that formula so as to satisfy the expectations of the public, who have become accustomed to such sounds, while in effect stagnating any possibility for deviation and musical development. Edm, in my opinion, also lacks this musical history Adorno refers to because the entire creation seems to be rooted in a marketable industry and serves thus only the purpose of numbing the listeners into a dazed whole.

                  "Sandstorm" by Darude