Commodity, Art, or Artsy Commodity?

While it is completely possible that all popular music is simply a massed produced commodity, it is rather unlikely that every song that makes the charts lacks artistry or individualization.  Adorno’s observations of the capitalistic nature of the music industry definitely ring true, though, for that is what it has become in many ways – a production line. His respect for classical forms is logical and well founded as well, but it is rather unjust to hold popular music and classical music identical standards as they differ in purpose and form. Not all popular music is high art, The X Factor and that ilk prove that theory wrong, but even if a majority of popular music is just mass produced, thoughtless standardized muck there are those few artists that defy that model and create beautiful, artistic, well beloved music (look at Mumford and Sons – have you heard as many literary allusions in recent times from any song than those in “The Cave”?).  Generalizations are hard to pull off as there is always the exception to the rule, which is where Adorno stumbles a bit.