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Adorno’s aesthetic theory challenges even the most sophisticated experts among his readers because of its combination of a dense philosophical discourse and a chaotic composure of technical musical terms (see also Rampley 150). A closer analysis of this kind of intellectual challenge, which he forces upon his readers, however, exposes Adorno’s hazy treatment of special terms for musical categories. Adorno points out his skepticism towards categories in general by locating the danger of simplification in the way aesthetic genres are defined according to the common characteristics they share with each other:

The universal aesthetic genre concepts, which ever and again established themselves as norms, were always marked by a didactic reflection that sought to dispose over the quality, which was mediated by particularization, by measuring them according to common characteristics even though these common characteristics were not necessarily what was essential to the works (Adorno 201).

This argument can not a priori be negated. The claim of always appropriate clear-cut artistic categories might include the risk of limiting the analysis to an unsatisfying surface. Nevertheless, the total ignorance of categories in a debate about music (and its relationship to society) contains the risk of argumentative incredibility. One example in his theoretical work, which eloquently depicts this kind of risk, is the way Adorno deals with the term ‘folk’. Paddison points out this critical aspect regarding Adorno’s doubtful way of distinguishing between musical categories:

Related to the increasingly ‘sociological’ writings are those on aspects of folks music, ‘popular music’ and jazz. There are, of course, very different categories of music involved here—categories which Adorno sometimes distinguished between, but often did not […] (Paddison 26).

This analysis points out that Adorno’s treatment of different musical categories indicates a great level of vagueness. My argument is: such a blurred usage of terms can be interpreted as a weakness of his theory, more than once forcing the reader to ask: which category does he mean? His all too loose and relaxed treatment of the musical category of ‘folk music’ exemplifies this kind of doubtfulness, which his theory has to be treated with, particularly when it comes to the work of a folk singer like Joan Baez:

‘Folk music’ as a category increasingly tends in the later writings to blur into a general concept of ‘popular music’ which is itself very hazy, and Adorno sometimes seems to make little distinction between popular songs (Schlager), jazz, and ‘light music’ (leichte Musik) […] (Ibid.).

The fourth chapter of this present study outlines the relevance of folk music, the famous Folk Music Revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s and the artistic role of Joan Baez in this musical movement. It contradicts Adorno’s philosophy, who wrongfully predicted in 1932 that there was no ‘folk’ left anyway (Ibid. 26-27). Baez and other artists during the beginning years of her career up until today falsify Adorno’s predictions about the doubtful existence of folk music. All in all, Baez’s efforts differ from Adorno’s theoretical point of view not only in regard to the falsification of his negation of folk music or the authenticity in the political impetus of popular artists, who are trying to mould the boundaries between art and politics: The most relevant dimension of my doubts about Adorno’s theory is the fact that any kind of theory about society and the question of how to change it for the better necessarily has to stay limited to the passive boundaries of words. This juxtaposition emphasizes the significance which a politically active singer like Joan Baez personifies in the combination of her artistic with her political accomplishments. Adorno harshly (and often rightfully) criticizes problems of society and, all the same, is not willing to do more than write complex philosophical explanations about it.