Dangerous Music.

Look. Dangerous music is good. Music that makes you think feel or act differently. But what is really dangerous is a song that does none of these things and yet still manages to stick itself in your head. There’s a song on the radio now that does just this. It doesn’t matter which song (just think of a song you dislike immensely and bear with me). It falls within a genre I enjoy, but it’s a poor expression of that genre. It sounds like hundreds of other songs out there. Yet I can’t stop listening to it. The chorus is so infectiously catchy that singing or mumbling along begrudgingly is inevitable.


This is a deviously dangerous cultural product and experience. An entity that can get under your skin despite your best attempts at keeping it out. Theodor Adorno would blame the mechanical reproduction of cultural goods for the tune's catchiness. He believed the limitations of format shape the art itself. Songs have to conform to a certain format for radio play; films need certain elements to ensure success at the multiplexes. For Adorno, art's meaning and power dissolves into formulaic and predictable trivialities: “As soon as the film begins it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished or forgotten”. Worse still, reactions to the work, like the very products themselves, become automatic. But there's a visceral reaction to music that Adorno's theory doesn't account for. The requirements of radio play and mass marketing may structure songs but does that explain the very visceral reaction of singing along?


Next time you are stuck singing a song you can't stand, ask yourself why. Then write me. Why can't you stand it? Why can't you stop yourself from singing along? Answers will hopefully make songs like these seem less dangerous.

w.

Slap an ad on my forehead.

I used to work in advertising. It was fun. And troubling. For those interested in some of the more random and frightening innovations in advertising, check out this recent podcast. If you are looking for the hard science of advertising, this isn't the place to go. But if you want to hear about pixel advertising, ads that can pay your cell phone bill, and advertisers who should be forced to watch the ads they make, the stick this in your web browser.

Neither Here Nor There Podcast

*AdAlert* - While you're there, check out some of their other podcasts as well.

My Frist Post

Ok this is a first post. So take it easy (don't worry, the title typo was intentional). I'm hoping to use this space to show both music and academic work in progress, since musicking and studenting are what I spend the bulk of my time doing. For writing, see below. For tunes, check out the link on the sidebar. Since both music and writing get better with comments, take a second to let me know what you think.

Thanks.
w.