'The culture industry'

Social theorists Adorno and Horkeimer formed a theory known as ‘the cultural industry’ which dealt with the concern of mass produced entertainment ,such as talent shows, having a set goal of making money through re-producing the same content and loosing a sense of unique talent. They stated how everything produced in the culture industry becomes a standard format and we as the audience become passive and start to reject real talent as it differs from the norm and what we are brainwashed to accept. This is known as standardization, were the culture industry produce content in the same way and creates a set package for artists by changing their image to something mainstream and popular in order to make as much money as possible through corrupting their individuality. They also came up with the term pseudo individuality which is were artists claim to be original but in reality they follow the standard format of everyone else and fall into the same pattern as other ‘original’ artists.

One direction are a key example of a band who fit into Adorno's and Horkeimer's theory as they follow the same pattern as previous famous boy bands such as take that, JLS and westlife and replace their image to become a new and improved version thus keeping the female teenage audience happy.

However, although this theory can be applied to almost every artists some, to a certain extent, contradict this theory and aren't marketed as an image which can be turned into a money making machine. An example of this could be the band The verve, although they are no longer together, throughout their singing career they managed to avoid getting caught up in making sandardise songs and stuck to their original image and produced music they were passionate about. Throughout the years of 1989-2009 they managed to maintain their casual 'lower class' image revealing their personality to their listeners rather than becoming a glamorous band like what society expects. On the other hand the band can also be said,to an extent, that they fit with 'the cultural industry' theory as they are still packaged like pervious bands such as oasis who also displayed aspects of their roots and previous lifestyle but still got famous for it as their music is what engaged the listeners. This is due to the fact there image is featured on magazines and on there album covers and their appearence is being sold as a mode of address so the audience can connect with them easier as they appear to be real people rather than a glamourous interpretation of perfection.

Now i have received the brief i wish to see if Adorno and Horkeimer culture industry theory fits with my band. Personally I think our band breaks the conventions of the theory as they aren't typical and aren't sold on appearance. They are also not glamorized celebrities but rather average people producing music as it is their passion.