Teddy Adorno and the Influence of Anxiety

Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against old Teddy Adorno. Band I used to play in even named an album of ours after one of his books--we were furiously scanning our bookshelves after a band member vetoed 'Sleazo Trance Imperative' because she though it made us sound sleazy. Wasn't my title idea, so I don't want to hear about any of your objections. But we were familiar with T.A. Frankfurter's cultural analysis--I don't come to bury Teddy, I come to dialect at him. For while he was never necessarily totally wrong about any of his music critic theories (certainly righter than, say, one of the biggest fans of this blog's chutzpah), that's only because they were so fucking cynical and closed-ended that they couldn't be disproven. Like, the whole big appeal of morbid cynicism is that nobody can ever prove you wrong--and any disagreement can be dismissed as mere sentimentality, or naivete, i.e. weakness. Which is why so many insecure wounded boy types flock to Teddy's writings like moths to a belsen burner. But the point, that is to say, the POINT getting to--wait, one more point before I get to THE POINT: in these political days you can't be cynical enough, am I right? I mean, even I, someone who has been accused of being a joyless worrywart scab-picker (as a writer--in person I am nothing but buttercups and silk pajamas), even I was certain Ms. Clinton would be elected president, that J. Corbyn would at least make it close, that D. S(trump)et would be seen as the conjob shitbox that he oh so obviously is. So let us all acknowledge that there can be value in cynicism, and a danger in sentimentality.

Having sort of said all that, my big objection to Teddy A's protests against the culture industry is that he saw the influence running more or less one way--the culture shaped the society. He had all kinds of valid biographical reasons to do this. After you've seen a propaganda machine destroy your way of life, kill camploads of your friends, and instigate global warfare, any pop song that isn't explicitly against fascism is probably going to trigger all kinds of PTSD. But I was thinking just now in the bathtub that one of the redeeming things about the current pop/rock/indie/genre-dissolution music landscape we now inhabit is that, while most of it is faux-nihilistic blankness, that blankness does, as the old bourgeois-shockers used to say, hold up a mirror to society man.

So our current music landscape that is mostly populated by careerist neoliberal blandouts, or homeschooled rich kids willing to work themsevles into a premature grave, or outliers willing to represent the false ideal that 'anyone can make it' (if they work hard enough) isn't going to create those conditions. It's going to reflect what's already there.

Let's consider the fleeting face of this particular pop moment (and child laborer) Billie Eilish. Take away the contemporary flourishes, and all you've got is a 21st century version of the Carpenters (right down to the inferior-talented sibling). The album itself is pretty much a snoozefest of barely-veiled showbiz glop, except for the grammy-winning hit, which I'm willing to admit sounds catchy & hooky. There hasn't been an underage hitmaker so desperately begging to offend someone since Ms. Spears, though Britney's "hit me" was far more ambiguous than the bloody nose and bruised knees, to say nothing of the BSDM-lite of Bad Guy's protagonist.

Of course because this is 2020 now, and the first goal of every artist, or every influencer, of every CEO of their very own Personal Brand Inc. is to sell one's self, to appeal to the broadest possible audience, even the line about seducing the father of the song's antagonist feels obvious and cheap. Even the edgiest, most uncomfortable moment of the Eilish clan's big hit owes more to a ubiquitous porn trope than any real transgression. I'll spare you the hyperlinks by giving you a screenshot.

We live in a society that fetishizes female youth, that condones violence, especially sexual violence, against women. A 2018 Esquire article identified Incest Porn as the fastest growing trend in porn (the fastest receding trend? friendly handshakes). Girls being sexually abused by their stepfathers isn't just a porn category, it's a real-life hellish nightmare landscape. We live in an age where we have easy access to everything except for financial security, safety, and compassion.

None of which is the concern of Billie Eilish, or her family. The uncomfortable parts of her song are (I'm assuming--if I'm assuming wrong, then she's got bigger problems here) meant to be 'provocative,' or 'controversial,' or 'edgy.' What they actually are--and in this sense, her art mirrors all mass-marketed rebellion these days--are 'predictable,' 'way too common,' and 'exploitative.' So while I don't think, as Teddy A. obsessively fretted, that her cultural artifact is going to drive society into a ditch, it's worth remembering that mirrors, even the ones that reflect the world we live in, tend to be two-dimensional, flat and only illuminated by the narcissism of the person gazing into it.

I should say that another thing that Adorno got right is that cultures and societies are inherently unstable, and that each can amplify the worst aspects of the other in a cycle that leads to dehumanization and genocide. Eilish Inc.'s lack of ethical POV re: anything is disturbing, not because it doesn't exist, but because it's not-existing-ness feels like an essential part of its marketing, like if having an ethical POV seemed more cash-effective, then that would have been in the song. Which is just the ultimate empty nihilistic gesture when you think about it, like a corporation destroying the planet for profit then donating $15million to climate research or something.

 And since I'm just some un-esteemed cultural critic who worries too much, I'll just go ahead and assume that Billie Eilish's future will be an exception to what usually happens, and that her life will unfold along the smooth, emotionally healthy path that most child stars seem to travel. And that working a 16-year-old harder than most adults will ever work in their lives, while under the scrutiny of millions, will have zero negative ramifications for anyone, and one of us will ever have to regret anything when the day comes that we're winning the awards and have at last achieved our deeply-held ambitions.