Pop triumphalism, update

Not surprisingly, many self-described leftists have rejected John Halle's thesis that the vast majority of pop music serves as a tool (wittingly or not) of élite capitalist forces and that classical music has a role to play in resisting them. He is accused of defending "old white people's tastes nobody gives a shit about." Take that, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. On the Minnesota matter, Halle is sadly right in observing that many on the nominal left have accepted "the right's rhetoric, viewing classical musicians as a 'coddled' workforce receiving an unjustified exemption from market discipline." The collectivist model of the orchestra, the chamber group, or the chorus is unfashionable; instead, our heroes are mega-rich superstars who peddle populist fantasies while residing on a plane far removed from ordinary life.