大众文化研究视野中的流行音乐

Pop Music from the Perspectives of Mass Cultural Research

由英国伯明翰学派20世纪70年代开创的“文化研究”的理论、方法与实践在80年代传入美国、澳大利亚等国,90年代后期传入中国,至今方兴未艾,成为人文社科领域的显学。而大众文化研究是文化研究一个非常重要的研究领域,这里所说的大众文化是一个特定的范畴,它主要是指与当代大工业生产密切相关,并且以工业方式大批量生产、复制消费性文化商品的文化形式。如流行音乐、商业电影、畅销小说、电视剧、商业广告、时尚杂志、时装表演等等。90年代后期至今的流行乐迷是一代“新人类”,他们和“前辈”歌迷相比,缺乏消费的主动性、创造性,更关注“私人生活”里的一己情感口味,而无意于社会群体的文化参与,而他们的私人流行音乐消费又是惊人的标准一致,成为阿多诺所批评的文化工业的受众。“‘惟乐不可以为伪’在今天已经不能成立,成批量生产的音响垃圾已经足够败坏大众的胃口,并温情脉脉地滋养着下一代人的精神软骨。特别在当我们全力以赴物质与金钱的战场的时候,没有骨气和责任感的流行音乐如同一切假文化艺术之名的文化一样,完全会成为文化毁灭者甚至终结者的帮凶。”这种忧虑并非多余,如果说80年代流行音乐充满了生机、活力和激情,像个活蹦乱跳的孩子,而当前的流行音乐则未免委靡、早衰,充斥着丑闻和花边。在强大的市场的逻辑下上演着一出不断更迭演员的相同的剧目,成为阿多诺文化工业理论的一个注脚。因此,对当前流行音乐的征候分析必须回到阿多诺和葛兰西!

The theory,methods and practices of the “cultural research”,founded bythe Birm ingham School in the U.K.in the 1970’s,were introduced intothe U.S.and Australia in the 1980’s,and into China in the late 1990’s,and are now in full swing,making it a fam ous school in the realm ofhum anism and social sciences.Mass cultural research,being a very important sphere of the“cultural research”,refers to a specific category ofcultural form s,largely in close connection with m odern industrialization,which are taking industrialized ways to produce or reproduce consum -able cultural com m odities in large volum es.They include pop m usic,com m ercial film s,best-seller novels,TV dram as,com m ercial advertise-m ents,fashion m agazines and fashion shows,etc.The pop m usic fans from the late 1990s up to now belong to a gener-ation of “new m ankind”,who,in com parison with those“veteran”fans,areshort of consum ing subjectivity and creativity,paying m ore attention totheir own sentim ents and feelings in their “private life”while ignoringthe cultural participation of social com m unities.They surprisingly resem -ble each other in their private pop m usic consum ption,turning out tobe the recipient of the so-called cultural industry that has been criti-cized by Theodor W .Adorno.“The ancient concept of’never m aking m u-sic that is false’works no longer today.The audio junk produced inlarge quantity has already spoiled the appetite of the m ass and is ten-derly nourishing the spiritual cartilages of the younger generations.Inparticular,when we are fully engaged in the battle between m aterialand m oney,pop m usic that produces no courage or responsibility,likeany other cultures in disguise of authentic culture and art,would nodoubt becom e accom plices of cultural elim inators or term inators”.Suchconcerns are never redundant,for if pop m usic in the 1980’s was live-ly,full of vigour and passions like an excited and happy child,popm usic of the present day is then alm ost degrading and presenile,alwaystroubled by scandals and gossips.It is as if the sam e dram a has beenplaying by constantly changing actors under the powerful logic of them arket,creating a footnote for Adorno’s theory of cultural industry.Therefore,sym ptom atic analysis of the current pop m usic m ust turnback to Adorno and Gram sci!