Adorno classified mass music listeners as either rhythmically obedient or emotionally cathartic

Evidence

Ultimately he arrived at a distinction between two different social-psychological types of mass behaviour towards music in general and popular music in particular. The rhythmically obedient type', which Adorno believed was found mainly among younger people, held fast to the basic tempo in spite of any syncopations, and was thus expressing its pleasure in obedience. This view corresponded to that in his essay on jazz, where the jazz fan was seen as being masochistically subjected to an authoritarian collective. In contrast, the emotional type’ used sentimental music to unload feelings, above all the feeling of unhappiness. Both types, according to Adorno, were reconciled to their social plight, although the first type was marching and the second weeping. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 267

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the two Adornian listener typologies — rhythmically obedient versus emotional — with concrete behavioral markers.
• XREF: Links to Adorno’s jazz essay and the masochistic-subjection motif, and to the reader’s notes on authoritarian personality formation. — connects to: Adorno’s utopian transformation ideal fueled his contempt for ordinary listeners — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1024; Adorno held that popular music became a tool of ideological manipulation — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 563; Adorno saw jitterbugging as a vestige of negation within standardized pop music — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 582
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno’s utopian transformation ideal fueled his contempt for ordinary listeners — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1024; Adorno held that popular music became a tool of ideological manipulation — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 563; Adorno saw jitterbugging as a vestige of negation within standardized pop music — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 582