Who Controls the Music?

[Scott Johnson]

The latest issue of The Nation is devoted entirely to the music
industry and music as a force for social change. There is nothing here
which will definitively answer anyone's questions, but I'm sure you'll
find it interesting.
   The cover article, Who Controls the Music?, is by Mark Crispin
Miller. In case your not familiar with Miller, his F-school credentials
can be seen in his book _Boxed In_, an examination of television from a
perspective which he acknowledges as being influenced heavily by
Horkheimer and Adorno's work on the culture industry. (It has been years
since I read that book, and at the time I hadn't heard of Horkheimer,
Adorno, or the Frankfurt School -- nor would I again for a couple
years.) His argument from that book that television has appropriated
irony I found memorable. In a recent issue of Extra! Miller wrote an
excellent piece on Channel One (the for-profit educational TV channel
which gives schools the necessary AV equipment free in return for the
school showing its daily programming, which includes the advertising on
which Channel One makes its money) in which he displays his Adornian
talent for criticism.
   I saw this the other day, and it made me smile. James Brown
(discussing his early hit Papa's Got a Brand New Bag):  

"To the musicians I was saying, here's a new bag. Here's a new
direction. Here's one that represents the people, not just Mozart,
Schubert, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss, or Mantovani."


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                     Scott Johnson

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