Around the Aesthetics of Popular Music – Theodore Gracyk vs Theodor Adorno

Abstract

The aim of the article is to introduce to a wider audience the philosophy of music of a lesser-known American philosopher (at least in Poland) Theodore Gracyk. The article focuses on Gracyk’s debate with Theodore Adorno, the main representative of the Frankfurt School. Adorno is considered the informal precursor of the analysis of the aesthetics of popular music, a relatively new area of Western philosophical thought. The breadth and multi-threaded nature of Gracyk’s views demand further attention, and this article attempts to capture and summarize the exceptionally difficult task Gracyk set for himself, that is to try to challenge Adorno’s theses concerning popular music and the mechanisms of its production in the music industry. Gracyk’s philosophical dispute with Adorno focuses on three intersecting areas: the issue of individual artistic expression in popular music (and beyond), the categorization and evaluation of different types and genres of music (here mainly in relation to jazz and, indirectly, to classical music and rock), and the problem of the historicity of the frames and conventions according to which music, including popular music, is received and judged. Despite the fact that Gracyk’s dispute with Adorno does not fully match the depth of Adorno’s work, it is an important contribution to the development of the aesthetics of popular music.