Original scientific paper
Nevermind Nirvana: A Post-Adnornian Perspective
Giles Hooper
; School of Music, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U. K.
Abstract
Popular musicology and cultural studies have mainly directed their critical attention towards Adorno's theory of mass-culture. Theorists working within the German tradition - such as Jürgen Habermas or Axel Honneth for example - have mainly directed their critical attention towards Adorno's philosophy of history, epistemology and aesthetics. This article argues that the perspectives developed by this latter "second-generation" of critical theorists may prove particularly useful in (re)assessing the relevance of Adorno's philosophical framework for an understanding of contemporary popular music. At the same, I want to argue that, despite his often generalising, empirically inaccurate and historically conditioned evaluation of popular culture, it is possible to rehabilitate Adorno's theory of social truth content in such a way as to allow one to identify in at least some popular music precisely that critical potential he denies it is capable of expressing; and, moreover, to do so in such a way as to salvage a moment for the "aesthetic" dimension, over and above the more communicative concerns of later theorists. This theoretical argument is furnished with a more concrete working-out by its being applied to a number of tracks by the alternative rock group, Nirvana.
Keywords
Nirvana; Adorno; Habermas; Honneth; Alienation; Culture Industry
Hrčak ID:
72133
URI
Publication date:
26.2.2007.
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