Culture Industry

First coined by critical theorists Adorno and Horkheimer, culture industry is a theory that argues products in the culture industry exist as a result of a standardized and planned method of marketing/selling. Using an assembly line character as an example, this means that production within the culture industry is a repetitive routine that produces the same uncreative result each time. Adorno and Horkheimer were critical of this approach, claiming that it destroyed any chance of creativity or being unique as cultural items would all be manipulated in a similar way in order to compliment hegemonic values to appeal to a mass audience and make more money. As a mass audience, we are passive to this due to capitalism having the power to manipulate us and cultural items. This theory has become so common that the audience are used to it and so accept it wholly.

This could be applied to the music industry in particular. It could be argued that artists nowadays are all the same or at least share similar traits. This is because they have been manipulated by capitalism; it is clear what makes money and so this image is repeated all the time in different acts in order to guarantee success and, more importantly, money. Whilst culture industry certainly works in regards to success, it arguably is not a positive theory within the music industry as it makes it difficult for artists who differ from the 'status quo' to become successful. They either have to be manufactured to fit the same mould or they are not successful in the music industry. 

Learning about this theory in class and researching examples is helpful because it teaches me more about the music industry. Whilst we want our artist to have an alternative element, this theory shows that in order to make her successful we have to obey certain genre characteristics. If we make her too different, she won't be mainstream. This is something we will consider when coming up with both our artist and target audience.

It could be argued that all popular artists in the music industry have been manufactured in some way by capitalism. I would argue that Melanie Fiona is an artist that is not a complete result of the culture industry theory as she first found her success by performing in Toronto nightclubs to a small, limited audience and so was free to make her own sound and image without the interference from capitalism. Her first album (The Bridge) is of the R&B/soul genre (as opposed to the pop genre where the culture industry theory applies the most) and I argue that she has not been manufactored by captialism as she states herself that she declined major record label offers in order to prevent them changing her "into someone else completely different". 

As a result of this, even though Melanie did not have huge fame and still continues to play shows in intimate venues to small audiences instead of a huge arena audience. This could show that because her music remains of the R&B genre as opposed to manufactored pop, although her identity as an individual artist still remains, she won't have any critical success because her style differes from what we are used to seeing in the charts.

However, Melania Fiona has since been signed to Roc Nation - a major record label as opposed to her previous RC Motown label --  it could be argued that she had been manufactured to an extent. Her second album did lean more towards the pop genre that her first did with one track even featuring autotune. This could support the culture industry theory as now that Melanie's sound has changed slightly, she suddenly found more critical success; she won two grammies for her second album.