I think this is a bit unfair. Adorno's thinking is far too complex to be merely "discredited." I disagree with many of Adorno's positions (his take on jazz verges on racism), but I still have to say the guy was a complete genius, so that even when he was wrong, he could at the same time be incredibly insightful. Not only that, he could be as harsh critiquing J S Bach as critiquing pop, and even his view of pop was more complex than what his detractors claim, so in my opinion he's hardly the best posterboy for pro-classical, anti-pop... This is way too complex to talk about on 313 though.
I will mention that Adorno viewed ALL art as failure, because he thought that there was a utopian impulse in art, that could never be fulfilled in the artwork itself, but only in some kind of socio-political upheaval outside the realm of art. This is a pretty fair way of viewing things, if you ask me ... you could certainly look at Detroit techno as also containing some utopian impulses, dreaming of a different kind of world, a different kind of Detroit, seeing beauty and potential in the decay... Now whether an orchestra covering techno is any good ... I think that is really going to depend on how well its arranged and performed, not on the idea itself. I'm skeptical, but then again, I would have never believed that Senor Coconut would be any good, but some of those covers do indeed work for me. ~David On Jan 10, 2008 7:24 PM, JT Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > the "heartfelt" rationale is utter dinosaur bs, pretty much exactly > mirroring the elitist anti-pop music pseudo-intellectual music > criticism of adorno and horkheimer during the 1940's. >
