Rock Music's Crusade of Authenticity

ROCK MUSIC’S CRUSADE OF AUTHENTICITY by DANIEL BROMFIELD A THESIS Presented to the Department of Journalism and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2016 An Abstract of the Thesis of Daniel Bromfield for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the School of Journalism and Communications to be taken June 2016 Title: Rock Music's Crusade Of Authenticity Prof. Thomas Wheeler This thesis attempts to define rock music's standards of authenticity and explore their origins. Included are comparison of rock's standards of authenticity to those of other genres and an exploration of how authenticity has been perceived throughout the history of rock music. This study argues that rock's standards of authenticity are unusual among pop music genres in that they entail artists both writing their own songs and playing their own instruments. This is in contrast to genres like hip hop, contemporary pop, and R&B, which have their own quite different standards of authenticity. Quotes from rock fans, critics, and musicians are used to provide insight into rock's standards of authenticity and how they developed over time. ii Acknowledgements I would like to first and foremost thank my father for introducing me to music. If not for his decision to turn me on to the Beatles one sunny day in June 2006, I would surely be pursuing a far more boring career – and thesis topic. And I would like to thank my mother for giving me a great life and being endlessly supportive. I am indebted to Prof. Tom Wheeler for supporting me as a student journalist throughout my time at the University of Oregon, and for serving as my Primary Thesis Advisor. I would also like to thank Marke Bieschke and Prof. Monique Balbuena for agreeing to serve on my thesis committee, as well as Mark Carey and Miriam Jordan for helping it all come together. I would like to thank the Beatles, the first band I ever loved and still my favorite band of all time, a group that has had a profound impact on me as a musician, writer, and human being. I would like to thank the following bands and artists for the pleasure they have given me. Prince, Lou Reed, David Bowie, O-Zone, The Melvins, Mike Patton, Mr. Bungle, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Vladislav Delay, The Mountain Goats, Wu- Tang Clan, and Xiu Xiu. “Music is the ultimate power, love is simply the message and the truth will set you free.” –Prince Rogers Nelson iii Table of Contents Introduction / Chapter 1: Expressive & Nominal Authenticity 1 Chapter 2: Defining Rock’s Standards Of Authenticity 5 1. A Look At Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists 5 2. Expressive Authenticity 8 Chapter 3: Online Rock Fandom, Internet Memes, And Authenticity 13 1. Comparative Memes 13 2. Commitment 22 3. Rebuttals 23 Chapter 4: Authenticity, Bob Dylan, Rebellion, And “Meaning” 24 1. History 24 2. Rock, Rebellion, And Youth Culture 25 3. Bob Dylan And Folk Rock 27 Chapter 5: Authenticity, The Beatles, And Self-Containment 32 1. Before the Beatles 32 2. The Beatles, A Self-Contained Rock Band 32 Chapter 6: Rock’s Self-Defense Against Pop 36 1. Anti-Commercial Rock vs. Commercial Pop 36 2. Rock Under Threat 37 Chapter 7: Conclusion 39 Bibliography 41 iv Introduction / Chapter 1: Expressive & Nominal Authenticity Every genre in popular music has its own standards of authenticity – and, by extension, its own standards of what it considers inauthentic. Most often, these standards have to do with what the late philosopher and art critic Denis Dutton calls expressive authenticity, namely “faithfulness to the performer’s own self, original, not derivative or aping of someone else’s way of playing.” 1 Expressive authenticity encompasses regionalism, as in certain genres of hip hop and dance music, where music not created in a certain area or conforming to a sound associated with a certain area can be dismissed as inauthentic. It encompasses genres with an emphasis on autobiography, such as mainstream hip hop, where a certain consistency between artist’s background and their lyrical content is often key to gaining respect among fans. And it encompasses subcultural movements, such as punk, goth, and extreme metal, where an artist’s failure to conform to rigid and insular codes of ethics or ignorance of certain aspects of the culture can result in them being marginalized. Rock music, on the other hand, endeavors to impose standards of authenticity that mostly fit into what Dutton calls nominal authenticity, namely “the correct identification of the origins, authorship, or provenance of an object.” 2 Rock values self- containment: that the credited artists on a recording or performance play their own instruments and write their own songs. Rock artists who fail to adhere to this standard are in danger of being dismissed by fans and critics alike as inauthentic, phony, or 1 Denis Dutton, “Authenticity in Art,” The Oxford Handbook Of Aesthetics (2003): 258-274 2 Ibid. lacking commitment. This criticism has been applied to genres like “bubblegum,” the producer-oriented variation on garage rock that dominated charts in the late 1960s, and artists like the Monkees, who did not write their own songs or play their own instruments. More interesting still is rock’s desire to impose its standards of authenticity on other genres. Rock fans are contentious. Today, we can see on internet rock communities dozens of memes – bits of media intended to be shared and go “viral,” rapidly spreading across the internet – comparing the authenticity of rock musicians to the perceived inauthenticity of musicians working in pop or other genres more driven by producers and behind-the-scenes songwriters. And this is not a new phenomenon; in the late 1970s, mainstream rock culture targeted the then-ascending disco culture and its accompanying musical form, condemning it as inauthentic and hosting demonstrations at which disco records were ceremonially destroyed. Rock has little focus on regionalism or on consistency between artists’ backgrounds and the claims made in their lyrics. It is not uncommon for rock acts to assume the personas of others – people from a different region, social class, or ethnicity, for example. Nor does it place much importance on regionalism, for the same reason; regional genres like Southern rock can be adopted by those from a different geographical area with little to no outcry over those artists’ authenticity. Rock’s nominal ideal of authenticity is less common in popular music than an expressive ideal, although there are some notable instances in which the nominal ideal is imposed. For example, electronic dance music is currently embroiled in a controversy over DJs using “ghost producers,” uncredited producers hired to make original tracks 2 for DJ sets. Fans and musicians within the genre have both defended and criticized this practice, though mostly the latter. And pop occasionally finds itself in a controversy over the performers on a recording not being those credited, as when the members of the pop duo Milli Vanilli were exposed as lip-synchers. 3 Rock has not always valued a nominal standard of authenticity. In the 1950s and much of the 1960s, many rock artists performed mostly covers or were reliant on behind-the-scenes songwriters. So where did these nominal values of authenticity come from, and when did they come to be associated with the rock? Why are they so linked with the genre today? And why is rock so aggressive in seeking to impose these values on other genres? Before answering these questions, it is worth noting that “rock music” is a broad term. Fundamentally, it applies to a genre of music that evolved from the earlier rhythm and blues style known as rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s in the United States and United Kingdom. (A distinction between rock ’n’ roll and rock is often made, but I will treat them here as one and the same for the sake of convenience and to tie together the rock ’n’ roll tradition and the later “rock” tradition.) The rock culture I will discuss here is mainstream rock culture. This applies to any genre of rock that has or has ever had a strong presence on the Billboard Top 10, including rock ’n’ roll, the “classic rock” of the 1960s through the 1980s, the arena rock of the 1970s and 1980s, the alternative rock popular in the 1990s, and 2000s hard rock, as exemplified by bands like Disturbed and Black Veil Brides. Rock has spawned 3 Spencer Kornhaber, “Milli Vanilli, Pop Music’s Original Fakes,” The Atlantic, November 27, 2015. 3 countless derivative subgenres, including subcultural genres like punk, heavy metal, indie rock, etc.; most of these are focused around underground scenes. Unless these genres have a strong chart presence, I consider them outside the rock mainstream. For example, Green Day is a mainstream pop-punk band, as they have repeatedly charted in the Top 10 and enjoy a following outside their community, while Wavves, a pop-punk band revered in the indie community but which has never charted that high, would not be mainstream. 4 Chapter 2: Defining Rock’s Standards Of Authenticity 1. A Look At Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists In 2004, Rolling Stone – one of the first magazines to feature rock criticism – published a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. As expected from a magazine with a pop- and rock-oriented focus, 72 out of the 100 artists on the list are classified as rock on Wikipedia: 72 out of 100. Indeed, the magazine calls it a list of the greatest artists of the “rock ’n’ roll era.” The remainder are primarily hip hop, pop, and R&B artists.

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