Sincerity, "Sincerity", Irony, Earnestness, Coolness, Pop

[GlennPageMusic]

This will probably fall far beyond the scope of taxi, and I'm not really looking for answers or solutions. People could write whole books on the subject, and people have.

That said, I must say I get a bit distraught when I see words like "sincertity" bandied about in such a cavalier way.

While it is true that what is "sincere" and "earnest" will always be subjective to a degree, and what flies in one genre may not fly in another, and that tastes evolve and change over the years, there are still things to be said about words like "sincerity" and "irony" and "coolness" which are never really addressed here on taxi. No fault of their own, of course - it's probably well beyond their scope of concern, and, to be frank, it's really not in the music business' interest to address these things.

Whenever you see an ad that asks for sincerity (or even earnestness), please don't believe for a second that that is what is being asked for. Yes, it would be NICE for the songwriter to be sincere in their intent, but what is really more important is that the "sincere" signifiers match up with what is currently perceived as "sincere."

Now we all know that Celine Dion like bleating. for the most part, is well past its heyday of being perceived as "sincere." There are many cultural and commercial factors which go into this. But I gotta tell ya folks, I'm well past the point - if I ever DID - of hearing, say, "soulful", indie, Tom Waits-ish mumbling over a piano, for example, automatically translates to "sincere." The question is not whether the artist is really sincere. The question is not even really whether the artist is GOOD. It's more of a quesiton are they hitting the right commercially-sanctioned "notes", no pun in intended.



In fact, I hear some of the mewling which is supposedly SO "honest" and "sincere" (Hey, they have beards! They don't care how they look! And they play mandolins!!! They HAVE to be sincere!!!) and it seems as hokey and contrived as pop bombast at its worst. Sometimes it's even WORSE, because the pop cheese at least KNOWS it's pop cheese! But none of this matters, because that's what the public is currently fooled into thinking IS sincere. And YES, it can be faked.



One may argue that you can't come off sincere without actually being sincere. I think that's a dubious premise - and I highly doubt it would matter if it were true. Because even if you ARE sincere, (AND cool, hip, honest, savvy, talented AND good), it's doubtful you'll get anywhere unless you sing what the music biz believes is PERCEIVED as honest and sincere (and "cool" and "hip", for that matter).



Our culture has become so jaded and ironic and cynical over the years that people are driven to seek out more and more what they think is "real," but the end result has often been to create more hokey product which some people just can't recognize as hokey product yet. The desire for this type of legitimacy is strong - so strong that it results in the self-parody of bands that come off "TOO SERIOUS" or downright silly, despite going for the opposite effect. Don't be fooled though; just because the Tom Waits-lite guy is more attuned to the public's barometer for judging what appears "real" and "sincere," it doesn't mean he necessarily IS.

Unfortunately for me, I hear a lot of INsincerity where I'm sure I'm supposed to be all blown away by how cool and lo-fi- and indie and "soulful" something is supposed to be. I can't imagine I'm the only writer who has had this experience.

There's tons more to say on this subject, but that's just a few things I needed to vent about. Thanks for letting me vent.

[GlennPageMusic]

For what it's worth, this is also part of why I was so drawn to the early-70s Roxy Music records as a teenager growing up in the 80s.

Here was a band that took a self-conscious, post-modern approach to pop and rock music while still making music that was just great pop/rock music. They took a self-aware approach to the music, blurring the lines between irony and sincerity. Their love for pop music and the emotions it represented were real, and their desire to express those emotions was real, but there was another layer of meaning which distanced itself from the material and commented on it in the abstract. They were savvy enough to recognize and emphasize the artifice of pop "meaning."

NO OTHER BAND has ever blended irony and sincerity as well as Roxy Music did on those early records. Nowadays you usually get bands trying to be "SINCERE" with a capital "S" or bands who are full-on ironic, or bands who are some weird pop combination of both, where the main concern is really just to move records.

As a side note, I think it's interesting that NOW - while the whole culture is drowning in (supposedly) "knowing" irony, or attempts to match the cues that READ as sincere, that Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of Roxy Music, decided to put out a STRAIGHT album of jazz instrumentals. It's interesting because he didn't put it in "quotes" or make it a goof like you know every other band would have to do nowadays.

Plus, his intent is clearly sincere, because, like most artists who are REALLY sincere - not music biz approved sincere - his album probably won't move a ton of units. Ferry has already moved past the language of irony he used so adeptly, while some artists have barely even started grasping the questions a band like (early) Roxy Music raised - questions about popular culture and the meaning of irony and sincerity and commerce and romantic traditions - and this is FORTY YEARS LATER!!!

[Len911]

With Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music as your example, yes, okay, they had several soulful songs I loved very much, they also had some rather not so soulful crapper songs that were okay also. Virginia Plain, Street Life, Love is the Drug. Glam rock is probably not a category one associates with much sincerity either.
I preferred the more soulful songs they had, Avalon, Jealous Guy, More Than This, Take a Chance With Me...

Before that "straight" album, he had another, "As Time Goes By", an album of "standards", I bought it.

For myself, it's not really about the sincerity, I don't so much question that from any artist, but I prefer soulfulness whatever the genre. So that is why I prefer some George Jones songs or Vern Gosdin songs over 'green tractor, pickups and cold beer" type country. Even within the soul genre, I'd prefer an Otis Redding or Sam Cooke to an Al Green or Marvin Gaye, because to me they are more soulful. For blues, Howlin' Wolf is a little more soulful than Muddy Waters.

What I might think is hoakey and silly might cause young girls to scream and throw their underwear, I don't doubt their sincerity or earnestness, and where an atheist finds nothing, a believer finds truth, and I don't question either one's sincerity.

Personally, when I think of sincerity or truth and irony in the same sentence for a band, I would be thinking Frank Zappa,lol! Record sales??
http://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress. ... =600&h=396

[GlennPageMusic]

Hi Phil.


Thanks for the response.

Actually, when I was talking about early Roxy Music, I was talking about the way they turned conventional ideas of sincerity and earnestness on their ear by playing with irony and pop genres but always being serious in their artistic intent, or at least blurring the lines between their sincerity and irony. In other words, it was a whole different way of approaching the "OH MAN, THIS IS SO REAL AND TRUE AND EARNEST" school of pop theory - but a no less legitimate one.

And, no, most people would not associate glam music with sincerity (although I only reluctantly classify Roxy Music as a glam act - they were markedly different from their "glam" peers at the time). But the point of 70s glam - even though it was before my time - was that it was never MEANT to be sincere (in anything other than a sincere love of music); it was MEANT to be over-the-top, campy and theatrical.

But, despite the winking, it doesn't mean that the people who MADE that music were any less SERIOUS about their art and music than a so-called "SERIOUS" artist. (And in many ways, it could almost be construed as more "sincere" by acknowledging and embracing the bullsh*t nature of so much pop music.)

In fact, that brings me to what I call the "REAL" fallacy -something which so many people I believe fall into: That is, that a singer or artist is somehow more "real" or "serious" or "sincere" if they sing about "real" things. Or if they play "stripped down music". Or if they sound like Tom Waits. Or whatever.

The basic idea, however you slice it, is that "real" musicians sing about "real" things in a "real" way. And to that I say no way. As long as you're serious ABOUT making art, you don't have to SOUND serious (or "sincere") IN your art all the time. This is why I get so angry when I hear people constantly referring to certain music or genres as more "REAL" than others.

Oh yeah? Says who?

Sadly, as long as we have corporate America, which everyone started becoming overtly cynical about approximately 40-45 years ago, still trying to co-opt genuine emotion and sincerity, and wield it for their own purposes, we will always have people learning to expertly mimic the current signifiers of "earnestness" and "sincerity." (And, for the "hipsters", they've co-opted irony at this point as well)

I like those later Roxy Music songs as well, by the way.

And as far as what you said about some people being "believers" - well, yes. Of course that's true. That's why I made the caveat about personal tastes. My point was that there are still things to be said about the culture and the perception of sincerity beyond simply chalking it up to personal tastes. Whether someone thinks a song is "sincere" or not, and whether they care, ALWAYS comes down to personal taste.

However, it IS telling that people CAN be wrong in their estimation of what is sincere. And that goes back to what I said about it not really mattering, at least not in a pop music context. At least NOT as much as hitting the right cues and signifiers.

As before, there's a lot more that could be said, but I've obviously rambled for too long.

[Len911]

I had to youtube Tom Waits,lol, there seems to be a couple references about him. I can hear some Howlin' Wolf and Captain Beefheart influence. I also hear over-the-top, campy, and theatrical, just as you described Roxy Music,lol!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwevtliM_eo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LFjHo7Cdrw

Doesn't everyone like to get over-the-top, campy and theatrical once in a while??

http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/watchan ... /c280885e6

[Russell Landwehr]

Method acting.

The actor sure seems sincere in that action movie, but I don't for one minute believe that John Travolta is a cold blooded killer, or Meryl Streep is psychotic, or that Anthony Hopkins eats people.... but they sure came off seeming sincere eh?

In the studio and on the stage, a musician or singer or "artist" MUST put on the mantle of sincerity. Whether or not they came in with it. They must believe it at the moment or it will come out phony. So I think it comes down to... Does the performer FEEL sincere? Just because Tom Waits and Prince and William Shatner seem a little over the top, it doesn't mean they don't feel sincere. And that's where sincerity starts. Inside. If you feel sincere then you are sincere. If you feel phony then you are phony. If you method act yourself into sincerity then later feel phony about it.... well then you've just created a split-personality.

I remember sitting next to my grandmother in church while a pianist was performing a piece. The pianist was expressing the piece with flowing body and hand movements. My grandmother leaned over and said "Look how she moves around. It's like she's showing off. She's so phony."

Really?
But for a moment I bought her point of view... it's kinda like the people who make fun of something by parodying it... and them make us feel self-conscious for liking the original over-the-top performance.

Sincerity is in the performer AND the listener. If the listener doesn't believe it or like it because of some paradigm they hold, then the performance falls flat for that person.

But that's what is wonderful about music. It is Subjective. In the Creation. In the Performance. In the Experience. Everyone has different preferences that are (usually) constantly changing. Which is good, otherwise, Music could be truly quantified and created on a single assembly line by minimum-wage workers and would appeal to everyone. Whoops! Did I just describe the Pop and Indie product? hehe... I didn't mean to. And I don't think I did. Because Pop and Indie and Country and Rock and Dance and...every form of music constantly evolves to meet the tastes of the current consumers. And those consumers would spit it out if it wasn't sincere.

Insincerity? That's when someone fakes it and gets called out by the intended demographic.
Glam rock insincere? It was sincere at the time for both the performer and the consumer. The same goes for every form of expression today, yesterday and tomorrow.

Russell

[eeoo]

What about those of us that are writing for specific listings to match certain "ala's", are we at least sincere in our insincerity?

eo

[andygabrys]

ha!

whatever you are doing, its gotta be done with intention, even if you are copping the latest greatest thing.

sincere? I dunno. that's kind of a goofy term to me. kinda like a value judgement.

but I know I don't want to hear anybody play blues that doesn't intend to play those notes. I rather hear somebody intend and miss, rather than someone who phones it is.

again...sincere? that sounds like hallmark.

[ernstinen]

My take is the word "pretense." There are so many rock bands that were called "pretentious" such as my favorite, YES. Sure, any good art should have pretense, so why is that so wrong? I believe they were sincere, earnest, and cool. Just because they could play a lot of (good) notes and had poetic lyrics, the critics loved to call them "pretentious." It's like calling John Coltrane pretentious for playing like he did!

My 2 cents,

Ern

[Len911]

+1 Russell. I have to agree, it's all acting (fake). It's entertainment! If songwriters could only write songs from their real life experience, or actors could only act in documentaries, it wouldn't be entertainment, it would be horribly boring. If I'm not mistaken, the main requirement is plausibility. The real joke is people who actually believe their acting is real and take themselves too seriously. Was Roy Rogers a real cowboy? No, but because he was such a sincere and convincing individual (actor), and his image was so cool and earnest, I'm going to say yes, he was a cowboy's cowboy!