Authenticity As Authentication Essay

Authenticity within the culture of popular music is an issue that has been discussed for many years as it can be a huge selling point, it can cause society to either loathe or love a performing artist on how 'authentic' their persona and music is. Moore (2002) brings forward this idea in the article ‘Authenticity as Authentication’:

"...ask what (piece of music, or activity) is being authenticated, in this article I ask who”.

What he means by this is that we do not base our opinions on music being authentic but rather if the person behind it is authentic in the eyes of the public. Society wants to be able to relate to an artist as another ordinary human and because of this, authenticity can be a marketable trait that can be paramount in the success of a performer. This idea is also echoed throughout ‘Living underground is tough’ Solomon (2005) and ‘Reality Goes Pop!’ Holmes (2004). This review will compare and contrast between the articles, analysing the methodology behind each and

looking at the ideas presented by the authors.
An attribute of authenticity is for the target market to be able to relate to the artist they are listening to or that it has a particular mark to go along with it. in the case of Hip-hop in the Turkish community Solomon remarks that the consensus is that because the music is underground and released unofficially in private listening parties or by cassette that it is deemed more authentic than the normal popular music, ‘Rappers often point to their music’s not having been commercially released, for whatever reason, as an indication of their dedication to the music and to the hip-hop movement’. This is similar to the ideology of the Punk scene highlighted by Simon Frith in 1983 (cited by Schilt 2004, pg 123) where major labels are seen as a hindrance to authenticity, leading to small limited releases. Solomon takes an ethnographic approach for the article, gaining his information from sources within the Turkish Hip-Hop movement and by observing the people associated with that; there is also a detailed background given for the conflicts of authenticity within the sub-culture. This is the greatest strength of the article as the bulk of the concepts presented by the author are developed through first-hand information from figures within the subculture and also through students the author was lecturing at the time.
The article itself has a logical structure to it starting from the beginnings of the movement within Turkey where hip-hop artists were countering against the censoring from the government and distancing themselves from Turkish popular culture to the later commercial releases that caused tensions to rise within the movement. In contrast, the article by Holmes has a composition that does not flow as well due to a lack of a logical structure and an unclear message which hinders the relevant ideas that are brought forward. A point that Solomon states are that the artists and DJs within the sub-culture were rarely from a disadvantaged socio-economic background which is a contrast to the original hip-hop movement from the USA:
“rappers and DJs in this community are generally not poor people or members of socially marginalised minority groups such as Kurds, Roma, or Muslim refugees from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but are largely middle-class ethnic Turks”.
Solomon himself remarks that dancers within the movement may be from poorer backgrounds but is not able to confirm this with the research done specifically for the article; also whether the lower class are fully accepting of the middle-class voices is not explored that deeply which is also remarked on in the end notes. This idea of socio-economic status as a symbol of authenticity is also mentioned by Moore (Ibid) in regards to the Blues genre which highlighted the harsh reality surrounded by the racial discord in the beginnings of the genre.
In contrast to Solomon’s ethnographic approach, Holmes studies the question of authenticity in reality music shows based mainly in the UK using a research only model with no interviews from people within the subject matter. Holmes does present the same idea as Moore that authenticity is something we, as a collective, attribute to the person behind the music rather than the music itself. This has been echoed since in reaction to other artists such as Iggy Azalea rapping in an accent unlike her normal speaking voice (Marantz 2014) & Lana Del Rey being a character that has been constructed (Vigier 2012).
In regards to the format of Pop Idol, the audience gets to see an artist built from the ‘ground up’ where we are meant to be able to relate.

this concept is also echoed by Fairchild (2007) that we perceive artists as “authentic celebrities” when we can familiarise with them as part of the same social caste. The construction of authenticity within these shows showcases the manufactured ideals that Pop music has been criticised for throughout the years which Rock music uses as a marketable trait that the musicians within the genre are authentic and are real to themselves. Also, Holmes examines the pre-live show stage where cameras pan through the waiting room of contestants displaying them as normal people not yet above the general public. Unlike Solomon; Moore and Holmes do not take any ethnographic form of research into account which in the case of their arguments (that we, the general public are the deciders of authenticity) would be deemed important to form a convincing

argument.
Moore also introduces the theory that there are several levels of authenticity; through “cultural dilution” due to the globalisation of music authenticity can be carried out by someone that is not authentic in the first person (his main example being Eric Clapton in the appropriation of the Blues genre); by employing Blues sensibilities and staying true to the style that Clapton authenticates the musicians he borrows from and thus can be authentic in the third person. This idea of levels of authenticity is similar to the Turkish Hip-Hop artists spoken about in Solomon’s article; although the artists are from a different background than the majority of listeners, they are ‘accepted’ as being able to be the voice of the underprivileged therefore being authenticated in the second person through the audience.
Second person authenticity is also mentioned in Holmes’ (ibid) article in that the authenticity of the performance delivered by contestants on the show is judged by the audience on whether it is genuine. In the reinforcement of this idea and throughout the article Moore uses many references in his methodology to counter the lack of ethnographic first person research. The article itself has been cited many times in derivative works (such as the mentioned article by Holmes) which shows the importance of the article in developing ideas in regards to authenticity within popular music culture.