Remixing Beethoven and Sampling Beyoncé: Cultural Hierarchies, Capital, and the Politics of Permission

This article examines the apparent double standard between the permissive culture of remixing in popular music and the restrictive norms governing arrangements in classical or "serious" music. Although copyright law applies to both contexts, the two spheres operate under fundamentally different logics of value production. Popular music derives its economic and cultural currency from diffusion, virality, and circulation; remixes, covers, and edits function as extensions of the commodity form of the recording and work to expand audience engagement. Classical music, by contrast, treats the musical work itself—and its presumed authenticity—as the core commodity, sustained by institutional gatekeeping, aesthetic reverence, and symbolic capital. Drawing on Adorno's critique of the culture industry, the article argues that both systems of cultural production ultimately serve capitalist domination: popular music through standardization and saturation, classical music through sanctification and exclusivity. The contemporary conflict around musical appropriation is thus not a matter of aesthetic superiority but of economic structures and cultural hierarchies. The article proposes an alternative model grounded in democratized access, authorized reinterpretation, and cooperative licensing, suggesting that meaningful common ground can be found by treating music as a shared cultural language rather than proprietary property.