Popular Music (MUS-10043)

Lecture 2: Authenticity

Learning objectives

To grasp the basic meaning of the term

authenticity as used in popular music studies, then
further dimensions/nuances of the concept
To lay the ground for the seminar next week
To prepare to complete the first KLE assignment (a
500-word essay on authenticity)

Is some music inscribed with authenticity, or is authenticity

always ascribed by individuals influenced by their specific
cultural and historical positions? Use yourself as an
example and use your answer as an opportunity to
critique your own musical tastes and/or prejudices. Why
do you believe the music you enjoy is more (or less!)
authentic than other music and how would you defend (or
deconstruct!) your values?

Structure

Class poll of last years best/worst

tracks
Basic definitions of authenticity

Case study

The pop/rock binary opposition

The Kaiser Chiefs vs/ Girls Aloud?

Moores Authenticity as
Authentication

Poll

Sample of best/worst tracks submitted via email

Get into groups of 2 or 3

Discuss these selections, and your own choices.

What are the differences between the best and worst
tracks?
How are categorisations of best and worst justified by
each person?
What patterns emerge behind the specifics of these
contributions?
Are there any interesting oppositions, either in peoples
views, or in their ways of categorising different acts?
What loaded terms are used to ascribe or withhold notions
of value?

Class discussion

Rock/pop, good/bad,
authentic/commercial 1

Allan Moore: The pop/rock distinction here

concerns the nature of the commercial enterprise
surrounding any particular style: the degree to
which it can be perceived as authentic.
Objectively speaking, of course, the
commercial/authentic polarity is illusory, since all
mass-mediated music is subject to commercial
imperatives, but what matters to listeners is whether
such a concern appears to be accepted, resisted, or
negotiated with, by those to whom they are
listening

In Listening to Popular Music.

Rock/pop, good/bad,
authentic/commercial 2

Roy Shuker: A central concept in the discourses

surrounding popular music, authenticity is imbued with
considerable symbolic value. In its common-sense
usage, authenticity assumes that the producers of music
texts undertook the creative work themselves; that
there is an element of originality or creativity present,
along with connotations of seriousness, sincerity, and
uniqueness; and that while the input of others is
recognized, it is the musicians role which is regarded as
pivotal. This view saw authenticity as underpinned by
a series of oppositions: mainstream versus independent;
pop versus rock; and commercialism versus creativity, or
art versus commerce It assumes commerce dilutes,
frustrates, and negates artistic aspects of the music.

In Roy Shuker, Popular Music: The Key Concepts (Routledge,

2005), pp. 17-18.

Rock/pop, good/bad,
authentic/commercial 3

Bill I want my rock stars dead Hicks

Warning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=xRkA6zugNMQ

Case study: KCs vs. GA

Case study: KCs and K vs. GA

KASABIAN SLAM GIRLS ALOUD

Movie & Entertainment News provided by World
Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
2006-08-28 08:35:16 British rockers KASABIAN have slammed pop group GIRLS
ALOUD for playing at UK rock event the V Festival - because
the girl group aren't 'real' rock music.
The CUTT OFF stars are furious Girls Aloud played at the
same festival - held in England at two sites in Stafford and
Chelmsford - as more serious acts such as RADIOHEAD.
And they were relieved when Girls Aloud covered the KAISER
CHIEFS hit I PREDICT A RIOT rather than a Kasabian track.
Guitarist SERGE PIZZORNO says, "Girls Aloud should be
nowhere near that festival. I'd have been devastated if they'd
done one of our songs."

Kaiser Chiefs vs/ Girls

Aloud?

What are your responses to these two

videos?
Do you agree with Ricky and Serge after
watching this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=0gY5hwvRwBQ
Discussion

And then where does this leave things?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-g2XYgbcRg
Discussion

The authenticity pendulum

From Moore, Authenticity as Authentication, p. 211.

There is much more to how we deem something authentic
than a verifiable binary oppositions: processes of
authentication

Authenticity as authentication

ACTIVITY: Discussion of Moores article

Authenticity as Authentication. Divide into four
groups.
Use your notes from your reading:

Group A must explain the difference between ascribed and

inscribed authenticity.
Group B must explain first-person authenticity.
Group C must explain second-person authenticity.
Group D must explain third-person authenticity.

Elect a spokesperson to feedback, with two good

examples one from Moore, one from your group
to illustrate your explanation

Ascribed/inscribed?

Ascribed: authenticity is not a property of a

performance, but something we ascribe to it
A construction made by listeners
Not an issue of what is being authenticated
(i.e., is having authenticity ascribed to it), but
who?
Who is authenticating, and why?

Socially alienated late-modern subjects (i.e., you

and me)
Irony of using a tool of that alienation massmarketed music as part of a process of
redemption for our alienated selves
Link to next topic (weeks 4 and 5), the culture
industries

First-person authenticity

http://youtu.be/T_lMMCTq0-Y

Folk and jazz manifestations relating to styles and

instruments unsullied by modernity (i.e., not electric)

In rock, reinterpreted as unmediated expression

Raw vocals, listeners relate to such crying or
shouting: This is what its like to be me

Shifting goalposts: Dylan/Springsteen and electric

Can be achieved otherwise

E.g. Neil Tennant, flat vocals, no histrionics: no hoodwinking

All related to an interpretation (by the audience) of a

perceived act of expression (by the performer)
Creates (illusion of) unmediated communication
Authenticity of expression = first-person authenticity

Third-person authenticity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FkEjOBJuw

If authenticity is partly illusory (a construction), then artificiality

may at times be authentic
Blues rock movement and Eric Clapton: worked back to
Robert Johnson, hence cover of Crossroads with Cream
Clapton on Johnson (remembering Weller): the most powerful
cry it seemed to echo something that I had always felt
So Claptons expression of authenticity, ascribed by the
audience, is this is what its like to be me but also this is what
it was like to be Johnson
The acquisition of a mode of unmediated authenticity, be it in
rock, metal, tribute bands, folk, is authenticity of execution or
third-person authenticity

Second-person authenticity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxuThNgl3YA
When music becomes, for an individual within a group of
individuals, a place of belonging
Sense of centredness in face of alienating social change by
being a fan of an act (along, crucially, with other fans: a group)
80s rock bands from Celtic regions or deprived areas in USA
Springsteen: use of guitar and rock in face of pop electronica,
and commune of E-Street Band
a space within which metaphorical escape to a pre-modern
ideal became possible (also for fans)
Answering a need felt by the audience for some form of as yet
unexpressed emotion, thought, view, etc.
Authenticity of experience or second-person authenticity:

A performer succeeds in conveying the impression to a listener

that the listeners experience of life is being validated: the music
is telling it like it is for listeners

Some of you will ascribe second-person authenticity to this module

Prep for next week

Readings on authenticity on KLE. Read your assigned article (see next

slide for groups), and bring along to class a summary of the key things you
learned about authenticity from reading that specific article

Prepare to contribute to a discussion of the readings

Also come along with a rough draft, or key bullet points, developing todays
discussions, and your reading, and preparing to answer the first KLE task:

Is some music inscribed with authenticity, or is authenticity always

ascribed by individuals influenced by their specific cultural and
historical positions? Use yourself as an example and use your answer
as an opportunity to critique your own musical tastes and/or prejudices.
Why do you believe the music you enjoy is more (or less!) authentic
than other music and how would you defend (or deconstruct!) your
values?

Use Moores terms in your notes or draft

Develop examples and prepare arguments for what kinds of authenticity or
inauthenticity they depict

We will share your examples, and workshop them

Well also work on how you can write a strong answer that will demonstrate

Readings for next week

Read the article assigned to your surname:

A-F: article 1 (Moore U2 and the Myth of
Authenticity in Rock)
G-L: article 2 (Butler Intertextuality and
Authenticity in Two Covers by the Pet Shop Boys)
M-Q: article 3 (Leach Authenticity and the Spice
Girls)
R-Z: article 4 (Armstrong Eminems Construction
of Authenticity)

Further reading

Allan Moore, Authenticity as

authentication, Popular Music 21/2
(2002), pp. 209-223.
Roy Shuker, Popular Music: The Key
Concepts (Routledge, 2005).