Jan
28th
Sat
28th
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.
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.
