ADORNO AND

HORKHEIMER

Throughout time, there have been an increasing number of new pop bands emerging within the music industry. The record companies modifies each band to create a small but noticeable difference in order to enable the audience to distinguish the each band. Within the culture industry Adorno and Horkheimer discuss "Pseudo Individual" which theorizes the lack of originality amongst cultural products consumed by the masses and the use of minor modifications to cultural products to create a false sense of individuality. Cultural industry allows people to become 'massers' and to be easily manipulated by capitalist corporations and authoritarian government. This can be seen in bands such as Spice Girls in which the girl group present their ‘pseudo individuality’ through the use of names such as ‘baby spice’ or ‘posh spice’.

ONE DIRECTION Adorno and Horkheimer's Culture Industry theorizes that the

music industry uses an ‘assembly line’ style of method in order to create an artist. This means the artists are constructed for the audience so the record label can sell more albums as the artists fits into the mould that appeals to the audience more.

Within ‘One Direction’ we can easily see the music industry’s ‘assembly line’ style of creating a boy band as they share common attributes with other groups that also fits into Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory. The 4- previously 5- member group was put together by Simon Cowell during ‘The X Factor’ so his record label – Syco- could sell them better and target them to a specific group. This has shown to be a great success with ‘One Direction’ selling many albums and memorabilia throughout their 5 year run.

ED SHEERANIt can be suggested Ed Sheeran is opposite to Adorno and

Horkheimer’s theory and therefore goes against this idea. Ed Sheeran has not been mass produced by a record label in order to appeal to a wider audience. His image has not been influenced or changed since he became popular in the music industry - Sheeran has maintained the same image throughout. He is not similar to any other solo artist as he frequently uses a loop machine to create his music live and he does not rely on a band to back him up when he performs in concerts. Additionally he does not have a capitalist corporation behind him making merchandise of him nor a film of him, contrasting with One Direction.