AUTHENTICITY

THOUGHTS ON AN INDUSTRY BUZZWORD

When I ask them, no one in the music business seems to know for sure what authenticity really means. Yet it’s the industry’s current buzzword – a complement given to artists who appear to remain true to themselves, unchanged by the pressures of the industry.

The idea itself is doubtful. Every artist is a construction Some just hide the scaffolding better. The audience, however, like to believe they’re hearing something true. They want honest emotion without artifice, a bared soul, not an act. The problem is, in the music industry art and artifice are the same thing. If the artist’s image was genuinely unfiltered, your average rock star would just be an average full-of-himself bloke.

I’ve managed a good few stars, both male and female. And the only one who ever walked onstage as exactly the same person they were off it, was Jeff Beck. Oh, and perhaps Steve Howe too. So maybe it’s a guitarist thing.

Johnny Cash was said to be one of the most authentic artists in music business history. He sounded like himself, he had a prison record, he carried a Bible, and he sat on a barstool when he sang. Genuine, maybe, but still theatre. By the early 1990s, his career had slipped but a series of albums he made with producer Rick Rubin revived it. They were much praised by critics who talked of their being “authentic”. I wasn’t too sure what they meant. But the albums were good, and Johnny Cash sounded like Johnny Cash had always sounded. So perhaps that’s what authentic means.

Half a century later, Billie Eilish is sold as raw bedroom intimacy, lo-fi vulnerability, no makeup, no filters. But that’s all scripted too. The breathy mic technique, the soft grain in her vocal, the whispered menace - it may have come about by chance, but it’s already as carefully branded as any French designer’s fashion range. And everyone seems certain – Billie Eilish is authentic.

Then there’s Drake, who turns inconsistency into an art form. One minute a gangster philosopher, the next a wounded poet, then a meme. He’s like a hall of mirrors. Every reflection is a different distortion of him, none of them quite the real person, but with enough varied viewpoints you get a rough idea of who he might be. Something he’s probably trying to work out for himself. You can’t get more authentic than that.

The irony is - the public think that what they prize most is “the real”. But in fact, what they prize most is “the believable”. Especially the British. When George Michael made Faith, he was textbook rock ‘n’ roll, in a grubby leather jacket. America fell for it; Britain not so much. Music critic Jon Savage spotted it straight away. Having watched the Faith concert at Earls Court, he said, “There was a mismatch between what George was presenting and who he was.” But when George was caught soliciting in a toilet in Los Angeles, he was lifted at once to 100% on the authenticity chart. Being outed for ogling a policeman’s package seemed unlikely to be a PR stunt. And to make a video celebrating it was genius.

It’s still not clear why one artist should be praised for authenticity and another not. For instance, although an artist’s vocal may be constructed from a dozen takes and a committee-approved backing chorus, if the singer seems to be speaking directly to you, the record company will claim they’re authentic.

But it’s only an illusion. Because “authentic” is just a marketing word for an artist who comes across as their real self. And by the time they’re superstars, most artists need therapy to find out who that really is.

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