Case Study: Analysis of That Fleeing Year Through the Lens of Theodor Adorno The main critique of Frankfurt School, represented by Theodor Adorno, on popular music is that monopolized companies constantly feed standardized cultural commodities to the public in order to establish a sustainable consumer market. Adorno concerns that centralized entertainment industry has a compulsory effect on the recipients, which deprives them of the chance and ability to appreciate “serious music” (“Social Critique”, 211). In On Popular Music, Adorno identifies several characteristics of popular music. This essay will apply some of these concepts to a particular Chinese popular song, That Fleeing Year, in order to examine the applicability of Adorno’s theory …show more content…
This essay will start from the analysis of the song in terms of standardization, during which the process of “plugging” is explained, and then focus on the lyrics of the song, the composition mechanism of which manifests pseudo-individualization, yet on the other hand, the content of which suggests a defect in Adorno’s characterization of popular music. As the theme song of the movie Back In Time, That Fleeing Year expresses yearning of a past love when “we were young and innocent”. The song drew a wide appeal because of the partnership between Xi Lin, honored as “the sage of lyrics”, and Faye Wong, Diva of Chinese popular music. Nevertheless, this song is standardized in terms of theme, structure, melody and lyrics. To be specific, That Fleeing Year invokes a reminiscence of Wong’s another song, To Youth, which is the theme song of the film So Young. The two films both center on romance and struggle of the youth. As a matter of fact, in recent years Chinese entertainment market has been flooded with cultural products on the theme of youth, of which common elements include friendship, love, betrayal, …show more content…
In fact, this paragraph addresses, rather than the composition mechanism, the actual content of the lyrics, that is, a compromised yet still individual sphere of word choices and sentence arrangements under standardized stipulations. Despite that some elements are supposedly required to appear in specific places by the producer, the language and rhetoric is far from being simple and repetitive, as what Adorno terms “baby talk”, which is the adoption of children’s expressions in the lyrics to make commercial hits (“On Popular”, 30). The use of “baby talk” aims at “relieving the strain of their (the listeners) adult responsibilities” and gaining trust from the listeners in a child-like attitude (30). However, no such thing as incorrect grammar or “unabating repetition of some particular musical formula” (30) exists in That Fleeing Year. Indeed, the lyrics are poetic in terms of the relations between sentences and elaborate language. Under an inquiry about the quality of the music on Zhihu (a Chinese question-and-answer website), a number of answers include exhaustive analyses of the lyrics. Internet user Mingjing Ren comments that the first sentence of the chorus is almost beyond comprehension without reading it in the context of the whole song. Other comments and analyses generally concur on the idea
Throughout all the anti-war protests and marches during the Vietnam War, it is interesting to note the changes in the music of that time. From the beginning of the war, where support and loyalty from Americans was present in songs, to the end of the war, where anger and distrust was evident in musical lyrics, American’s opinion changed about the war. This change in opinion was easily recognized by the altering of musical lyrics about the war when Americans grew tired of the constant sending of U.S. troops to Vietnam. The growing dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War led to increasing levels of anger and hostility in the popular music of the time.
Music is sound organized by humans; audible statement that mirrors a way of life or a way of thinking; a language spoken directly, without translation, between people who understand. In this class we studied liberal arts, and how it uses general intellectual development rather than opposed training, to develop a musical analysis of music such as “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez”. To develop an analysis, we group the organization of music into five musical elements rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, and form, and we find some type of organization or order in these pieces like pulse and background instruments to help identify these elements.
Richard Taruskin is one of the many American musicologists and historians whose interest is in the theory of music performance. The author of many literary works such as No Ear for Music: The Scary Purity of John Cage is mainly interested in Russian folk literature where he analyzes the historical trends behind every story. The American author is also well-renowned for his famous articles written in The New York Times, for instance, ‘The Danger of Music and other Anti-Utopian Essays’ and others with a strong relation to social, cultural and political issues in the essays. This essay is a response to Taruskin’s No Ear for Music: The Scary Purity of John Cage. The essay will focus on analyzing its critical argument in an attempt to really
Many say that music has evolved over the years. This essay shall explore the elements of two versions of one song. It shall discuss the correlations and disparities of these songs and confer how it has been revolutionised to entertain the audiences of today.
More often than naught protest music is often associated with war and politics and a little less with the social norms of the current society and culture. The most iconic artist that did challenge and changed the social norms was Elvis, even though at the time he was not aware of doing so.
In this essay I will attempt to underscore and celebrate Simone’s activist efforts through song and demonstrate the messages in the music about race, gender, and class.
“There are a number of different lyrics used in songs that have been derived from poetry” (Kumar). Poetry is an older form of art and song lyrics have evolved from the art. However, it is a great debacle over which one can be considered the higher art form. The underlying question is if song lyrics have evolved past poetry, or has poetry remained artistic and intellectual. Despite bearing some superficial similarities, the differences between “To a Daughter Leaving Home” and “Never Grow Up” in imagery, message, and point of view are prevalent causing poetry to be considered a higher form of art.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the song “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s. This paper will identify the message and tone of the song, as well as the artist’s appeal to the audience by analyzing the organization of the song, and the specific rhetorical strategies the artist used to connect to the audience. The song’s organization, style, figurative language, and hyperboles in the lyrics will also be analyzed to connect the artist’s intention back to the audience. In this song, the artist’s main point and thesis, is that he is head over heels in love with a girl named Delilah. He wants to tell the world, and Delilah herself, how much he loves her, and how their love conquers the distance between them.
In this essay we will analyze two modern musical pieces. These pieces are namely Sonata V from John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, and Caballito Negro by George Crumb. Composed in mid twentieth century, both pieces made a great success and they are worth examining in terms of the historical and subjective values affecting their achievements.
Poems and songs may have strength in literary terms, but have you ever wondered what makes them powerful? In this essay, there will be analyzed two poems “The Boy Died in my Alley” and “Daddy”, as well as the song “Firework” in which theme, metaphor, and repetition are the literary devices that make them powerful.
Scholars consider Mandarin popular songs as “the first kind of modern popular music developed in China” (Lau 106). These Mandarin pop songs were developed in Shanghai in the 1920s. In Shanghai, the “trendy Chinese in Shanghai mimicked the lifestyle of the city's foreigners, engaging in pastimes brought in from the West, and this was also
So why would the band choose to illustrate such a serious stage of personal development with the nursery rhyme-like style of the song's chorus? Before we get to that, the song's emotional and psychological message must first be examined.
Popular music is often one of the best lenses we have through which to view our own cultural orientation. Many of the artistic and experimental shifts in popular music have mirrored changes in our own society. For instance, the emergence of Elvis Presley as a public figure would signal the start of a sexual revolution and the growth in visibility of a rebellious youth culture. Similarly, the folk and psychedelic music of the 1960s was closely entangled with the Civil Rights, anti-war and social protest movements. In this regard, we can view popular music as an artifact through which to better understand the time and place in which it is produced. In light of this, the state of popular music today may suggest troubling things about our society.
What is the ultimate form of a tragic love? For Wong, it is neither denial nor acceptance, but an eternal state of longing and waiting. Among Wong Kar Wei’s internationally acclaimed productions, Days of Being Wilde (1990), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004) are loosely counted as a trilogy of love. In the end chapter of his trilogy 2046, Wong continues to focus on Chou-Mu-Yun, a sentimental yet callous writer and womanizer. Revolving around the affairs of Chou, 2046 presents to its audience three pathways that love could possibly offer: to unite in happiness, to move on after the denial from the loved one, and to linger upon the unanswered love in perpetuity. Chou is undoubtedly chosen to be the bearer of the last pathway. As the