Is the audience for popular music created by the music industry?

Is it right to suggest that the audience has become a hypodermic receiver created by the music industry and fed these mass produced popular songs into their consciousness where by they are unmediated and this vicious cycle remains unbroken. Or do we occasionally see a breakthrough where an artist or a different genre emerges to smash this 'production line'.

Adorno would agree that all popular music sounds the same and that the music industry is purely a money making machine whereby if it strikes gold, it will attempt to replicate this model in order to produce success, this is where we see what is know as templates, artists/ boy-bands/ girl-groups rerecording similar songs to previous bands who were before them (probably all under the same management.)

However some would argue the audience are free to buy what they like and that popular music is still an art form. I would have to suggest that Adornos argument is a vast generalisation. However believe that it is only when the individual artist is permitted full artistic control say over the management that original music starts being made.

Kerrang Review

Kerrang can only be compared to marmite... as in its just jank! If I had to rate it using its K rating system I would give it one K- for Bollocks. For a quarter of your hourly wage at macdonalds its not bad for your money but I personally would rather spend mine on a cheeseburger! The glossy pages of the mag are split into main sections like any review style rag, commenting on meaningless crap such as Kourney Loves next escapades or interviewing the superficial Blink 182. If your serious about rock music then perhaps Metal Hammer is more for you but if your a pop-rocker then Kerrang is right up your alley because it covers rock more generally. Kerrang is basically SmashHits indesguise covered in teeny rockers and moshers!