Adorno's writings are often the starting point for the teaching of popular music studies, usually passing swiftly on, after concluding that 'he didn't listen to the right jazz' or 'he was a snob'. In this book, using Adorno's aesthetic theory more generally, a viable philosophical approach to the study of idiomatic, non- standard music is constructed. The links between Adorno's work and its Kantian roots are explored, and a more general and inclusive aesthetic constructed, using the utopian and implicitly political elements in each.

This book will be of interest to critical theorists and musicologists wishing to build a more engaged practice without the pitfalls of a by now outdated 'postmodern' turn.