008 Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and Repetition in Music

This is the third episode in our series on Nietzsche. It examines the controversial and oft-misunderstood doctrine of the eternal recurrence for what it might tell us about the structuring of time (here I draw on Deleuze) and about how repetition in music operates in popular music. I review some of Adorno's complaints about popular music and the distinction between progressive time and repetitive time. I then turn to a discussion of how the notions of the Apollinian and Dionysian are transformed in Nietzsche's The Gay Science, focusing on the idea that we ought to "become what we are." This leads to the examination of the eternal recurrence and a manner of reading the repetition in popular music as a liberating and redeeming quality, not, as Adorno would have it, a symbol of our unfreedom.