Why is pop music the only art form that still inspires such arrantly stupid discussion? The debates that surround authenticity have no relationship to popular music as it’s been practiced for more than a century. Artists write material, alone or with assistance, revise it, and then present a final work created with the help of professionals who are trained for specific and relevant production tasks. This makes popular music similar to film, television, visual art, books, dance, and related areas like food and fashion. And yet no movie review begins, “Meryl Streep, despite not being a Prime Minister, is reasonably convincing in ‘The Iron Lady.’
Lana Del Rey’s Image on “Born to Die” : The New Yorker
Sasha Frere-Jones gets the January 2012 award for accuracy!
A commenter wrote in reply to this: “Agree with the sentiment, but actors act; musicians create music. We’re not implicitly invited to suspend disbelief with the latter.” This is just so wrong, because the role of the musician is not necessarily to create music so much as execute it. It feels absurd to have to point this out, but going back centuries, songwriters are not necessarily synonymous with performers. That is a fairly recent thing — Bob Dylan and the Beatles are largely responsible for the expectation that pop musicians write their own material. But regardless of that expectation, the majority of musicians do not specialize in performing their own material - even within bands who do focus on originals. And for that matter, it is exceptionally rare for actors to perform material that they have written. What matters is execution, and how a performer inhabits a role. Sasha’s point is that the overwhelming majority of creative endeavors are the product of collaboration with specialists, so it is absurd that music - a medium that all but requires people to come together to make anything happen – would be considered an exception. (via perpetua)
Yeah but no! There are many hollywood stars who we really do want to believe. That’s why the gossip press was obsessed with proving that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were doing it, and reviews of twilight did in fact talk about them in the way that they don’t about Meryl Streep: “Despite Pattinson and Stewart’s chemistry, the central relationship plays like a sad, destructive charade” and also we think that Pattinson isn’t actually a vampire (probably). What does the word “chemistry” mean except it could be real OMG. It’s why people love/d James Dean and Marilyn and Judy Garland and lots of other old hollywood stars. It’s what runs the gossip papers. And it’s still present in the way we talk about many many young stars: Lilo and Megan Fox and HELLO TUMBLR USE A MIRROR MUCH I KNOW YOU DON’T REALLY BELIEVE IT BUT YOU WISH YOU DO.
Post-script: It has come to my attention that I basically just post links about Lana Del Rey and fail to actually talk about her now. I just find it so interesting when people get so upset because other people are getting so upset because of something! But I will try to hold myself back in the future. Maybe in the mean time if you are bored and want to experience some constructed authenticity directly I can point you to my other blog.
(via heartdashbeats)
The AGA is showing some films Wednesday night at Metro Cinema. I’m going to be on a panel following, discussing serious games for the future with Marcus Miller, Steven Harris, Don Gill and Holly Newman. You should come.
