Musical quotation is simultaneously deference and mockery of authority

Evidence

No less characteristic of the regressive musical language is the quotation. Its use ranges from the conscious quotation of folk and children’s songs, by way of ambiguous and half accidental allusions, to completely latent similarities and associations. The tendency triumphs in the adaptation of whole pieces from the classical stock or the operatic repertoire. The practice of quotation mirrors the ambivalence of the infantile listener’s consciousness. The quotations are at once authoritarian and a parody. It is thus that a child imitates the teacher. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 100

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘authoritarian and parody’ doubling is a perfect analytical lens for the reader’s post-Adorno test—sampling, interpolation, and nostalgia-driven cover culture. — connects to: Parody performances are routinely mistaken for sincere commitment to what they mock