The E.N.D.

While the music industry is certainly a domineering and controlling one, I find it hard to believe that it is as powerful as some critics argue as to create the audience itself; after all, I’m fairly sure that we don’t live in the world Josie and the Pussycats suggests with an overarching, highly-secretive organization feeding us subliminal orders through pop songs. While Adorno argues that pop music just mirrors itself with variation to make new hits, the charts do not necessarily reflect that idea. Not every pop song becomes a hit; audiences choose which songs they like. The audience indeed relies on the music industry to provide access to music, and often is influenced via marketing and similar techniques, but they aren’t being held down and forced to listen to the X Factor. Music doesn’t all sound the same; therefore, between that and free will, which I like to think I still possess, the audience for music is not directly created by the music industry but is definitely influenced by it.