Untitled - Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative

audience. and thus may be readily digested by a pre-existing market. This means that
new music must be presented in a manner and fonn consistent with what consumers ha\'c
heard and been sho"'T1 to purchase in large quantities before. such as with the old radio
standards that are habitually repackaged to feature a thumping electronic dance beat and a
wealthy. overexposed hip-hop star trumpeting his rapping abilities and/or sexual prowess.
For "'lth every deviation from the established formulae. with each added complexity and
new demand placed on the audience's patience. the record company risks a concomitant
decline in market share. and the A & R man risks both his professional reputation and his
pay-cheque. That many executives are 'M-;lIing to take such risks for the sake ofmwic
they feel strongly about is undeniable. That the economics ofmusical production
conslrain and ultimately override their initiative in this regard is equally undeniablc.
And so music produced by the culture industry comes 10 bear the objective slamp
ofstandardization. detectable. in my opinion. to almost anyone who is willing and able to
listen closely 10 Top 40s radio. But this attribution ofobjective qualities to cenain kinds
ofmusic raises the whole question ofwhether sociological explanations Oflhis kind are
mere!}' elaborate rationalizations ofthe pre-existing. fundamentally non-rational taste
preferences of the person doing the theorizing. The really interesting question. however.
concerns the extent to which the claims I have pul forth regarding industrially produced
music reflect either the idiosyncratic views ofa small handful ofacademics or a
genuinely intersubjective understanding ofmusic held by actual practitioners in the field.
Quite obviously. the word -intersubjectivc" has much more particular connotations than
"objective". given that the fonner implies something that is true only for a select group of
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