One of the hardest things to do anymore is just to be an authentic human being. No one really seems to know what that means anymore. Although each one of us has our own sense of who we are and our own version of authenticity, these ideas are subdued by the process of McDonaldization. Generally speaking, McDonaldization is a term used to refer to “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world” (Ritzer, 1993: 1).
This means that everything is valued based upon its ability to be replicated efficiently, predictably, mechanically in measurable amounts, and to a degree of rationality that removes the human equation from the problem altogether. This process is applied to all kinds of things in life today, from how we eat and work to how we play and interact with each other. Understanding how McDonaldization affects parts of our lives, such as in the production of rock music, can help us see the process as it occurs in other areas of our lives.
From its earliest beginnings, McDonaldization has played a role in the way music is produced through the principle of calculability. One of my favorite bands has always been the Beatles. It was a band that my father introduced me to, listening to them when I was a baby and singing me to sleep with their songs. As I grew older, I realized how much they had influenced so many other of my favorite bands. It was surprising to me to learn that most of the songs that the Beatles sang were actually written for third-party groups, meaning they were very general and were designed to appeal to the public rather than being expressions of the ideas and thoughts of the band members.
The process created to maximize the Beatle’s effectiveness in the rock world is still used today to create new hits. “McDonaldization involves an emphasis on things that can be calculated, counted, and quantified. In terms of the latter, it means a tendency to emphasize quantity rather than quality” (Ritzer, 1993: 102). Just like in the fast-food industry, the more songs that can be produced that can satisfy an audience in the least amount of time were seen to equal the greatest success.
This industrial process behind the creation of our musical selections effectively blocks out the creative impulse, which explains why ‘break-out’ bands are so difficult to find. If they don’t follow the currently accepted formula in order to be authentic, they are often relegated to the lower ranks of entertainers because they are not able to ‘package’ their sound.
Predictability is therefore another element that plays a large role in how our music is produced today that started back with the sensation of the Beatles. The songs that the Beatles produced were all about other people rather than the people in the band. They featured stereotypes, such as Eleanor Rigby, a lonely woman who lived and died without ever having been noticed. This enabled the public to closely identify with the songs as they recognized parts of their own characters in the characters of the music.
Musicians who try to write about their own personal experiences without finding a way of relating them to the general experience are not often able to find success while those who generalize, such as in the characters featured in Greenday’s music, are typically able to achieve great success. In order to improve the probability that their music would achieve success, artists were required to sacrifice authenticity for predictability in appealing to the most common human experiences and emotions.
Once music is industrialized or McDonaldized, it must attract its audiences’ interests in order to make a profit for the business people who manage the recording company and the musicians themselves. In order for musicians to get their music or a new album is to be on the air, the songs on it must be produced and treated with the process of McDonaldization. The process begins with calculability, which is applied when the new album is played on the air for the first time and responses are tracked.
Since calculability values quantity over quality, the number of times the new album is played as a result of DJ preference, programmer support, or listener requests is used as the measurement for whether that album will be considered successful. Songs that are easily accessible on the Internet are automatically considered more popular than hardly accessible songs because they are played more often and thus increase Calculability. A good example of music’s predictability is found in the music of Eminem. Some of the lyrics of this artist’s songs are violent and convey a strong hatred of his family and of other people, often causing a great deal of controversy.
Despite the very personal nature of his songs, though, Eminem managed to remain popular for a long time even though the rest of the market was largely saturated with love songs and ‘easy listening’. This success was due to the fact that Eminem stuck to his own person rather than conformed to the popular sound of the day. “In a rational society, people want to know what to expect in all settings and all times. They neither want nor expect surprises.
They want to know that when they order their Big Mac today it is going to be identical to the one they ate yesterday and the one they will eat tomorrow” (Ritzer, 1988: 104). Eminem’s fans expected him to create something controversial, violent, and full of rage and this is what he consistently delivered.
McDonaldization can be said to have removed a great deal of human creativity and enjoyment in its streamlining of the production process as a means of maximizing profits but learning how the process works can reveal ways in which the system can be manipulated to allow for unique expressions. The Beatles wanted to introduce an entirely new sound to the world and was able to bring this about by allowing their music to be industrialized.
This process was frustrating to the members of the group who wanted greater ability to express their own personal feelings and opinions and caused the break-up of the group. However, understanding how the process works enabled future musical leaders such as Eminem to find a means of combining their personal message with the McDonaldized process to popularize a new message. While the question of authenticity remains in question in such a process, it is somewhat comforting to discover that means can be found to reduce the mechanized, overly rational world to allow for the irrational creative nature of human existence.
Works Cited
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. New York: Pine Forge Press, 1993.