As I was reading Adorno, one of the things that he said early on in his essay caught my eye. He said that it is not music which can be valuable, but we attribute value to certain things. This is the case with music. He said that we are not praising this work of art but we are praising our money and what it can buy. So essentially the more expensive it is to see a play or a concert, the more prestigious it must be. Adorno says that this is a false sense of worth, saying that "all ‘light’ and pleasant art has become illusory and mendacious. What makes its appearance aesthetically in the pleasure categories can no longer give pleasure, and the promise of happiness, once the definition of art, can no longer be found except where the mask has been torn from the countenance of false happiness" (33). We take our standard of beauty or what should be praised from society. When I read this quote of his I thought of my relationship to The Beatles. While I do quite enjoy some of their songs, I do not put them up on a pedestal like everyone else seems to. If I tell someone I don't really prefer The Beatles then I am ridiculed because on just this one topic, we are all supposed to have the same opinion: The Beatles are the best and if you question that then you are delusional. I think that this song just helps to prove my point that although I do like some of the songs by The Beatles, I do not idolize their being and everything they did. This song I first heard when watching their animated film as a child and to me that's the audience that it speaks to, a child. There is no real meaning to it, although people may want to interpret it that way, it is just a fun song with a simple and catchy chorus.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
(Adorno) Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
As I was reading Adorno, one of the things that he said early on in his essay caught my eye. He said that it is not music which can be valuable, but we attribute value to certain things. This is the case with music. He said that we are not praising this work of art but we are praising our money and what it can buy. So essentially the more expensive it is to see a play or a concert, the more prestigious it must be. Adorno says that this is a false sense of worth, saying that "all ‘light’ and pleasant art has become illusory and mendacious. What makes its appearance aesthetically in the pleasure categories can no longer give pleasure, and the promise of happiness, once the definition of art, can no longer be found except where the mask has been torn from the countenance of false happiness" (33). We take our standard of beauty or what should be praised from society. When I read this quote of his I thought of my relationship to The Beatles. While I do quite enjoy some of their songs, I do not put them up on a pedestal like everyone else seems to. If I tell someone I don't really prefer The Beatles then I am ridiculed because on just this one topic, we are all supposed to have the same opinion: The Beatles are the best and if you question that then you are delusional. I think that this song just helps to prove my point that although I do like some of the songs by The Beatles, I do not idolize their being and everything they did. This song I first heard when watching their animated film as a child and to me that's the audience that it speaks to, a child. There is no real meaning to it, although people may want to interpret it that way, it is just a fun song with a simple and catchy chorus.
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