Fundamental economic reorganizations are always presaged in music

Evidence

We are in a time of transition. Jacques Attali once argued that fundamental changes in the economic organisation of society were always presaged by music. Because, as a result of downloading, recorded music now seems to be heading towards decommodification, what does this suggest for the rest of the culture? And we are yet to hear the impact that the financial crash and its aftermath will have on musical production. The collapse of neoliberalism has already led to a simmering, renewed militancy on university campuses and elsewhere — how will this translate into sound? Perhaps soon we will once again hear new music that aims to turn the world upside down. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1288

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music argument that music anticipates social order — an economic-history claim worth chasing. — connects to: Music’s post-French-Revolution evolution is capitalism working within the musical material itself — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 754; The stated rationales for musical arrangement conceal economic and aesthetic falsity; Advanced music’s immanent development abolishes bourgeois expressive categories. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 490
• QUESTION: Is Attali’s music-presages-economy thesis actually well supported anywhere, or is it a suggestive aphorism? Worth investigating the source.

Broader Connections

• Music’s post-French-Revolution evolution is capitalism working within the musical material itself #expands (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 754
• Advanced music’s immanent development abolishes bourgeois expressive categories. #corroborates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 490
• The stated rationales for musical arrangement conceal economic and aesthetic falsity #complicates (0.72)