I have to answer this question for a discussion tomorrow. I don't really know how to answer it...Halp y'all!!


How important is authenticity in music?
Rock and roll fans in the 1950s wanted their heroes to be youthful. Fans of styles ranging from folk to metal have specific sets of criteria for judging whether or not something is "true" folk, metal, etc. Many people consider performers who don't write their own songs to be artistically suspect. Is authenticity in music real or is it just part of an image? Is music or its performers less valid if they are judged to be somehow inauthentic?

I'm sure if you wrote "Talent always win" you will do alright

I guess you could argue that any sort of song released is a 'true' art form because it came from an original idea someone had. Look at Whitney Houston- she didn't write a lot of her big hits, but no one questions her authenticity. I guess with the new age of social media, and socialites being a real career now, that some people are making music to become famous, rather than making music for the sake of making music.
Saying that, does music have to be authentic? sometimes people want to listen to something easy and take it at face value instead of trying to decipher some sort of meaning. I dunno, i'm probably confusing you more

"Authenticity" as your teacher describes it, does nothing but put artists into boxes. Who is a fan (who doesn't know the artist personally) to say that what an artist does is not "authentic"; who gets to set that definition? Many popular artists today experience with different sounds and often fuse genres to create their own specific sound. Other artists use a team of writers and producers to help them carry out and perfect their vision. Also history shows that all truly great artists have stepped outside of the box and been accused of not being authentic sometime in their careers. It's a subjective term and the only people who get to determine whether or not their art work is authentic is the artists themselves.

I don't believe in originality or true innovation. There's been so much music in the last century that I truly believe all possible genres have been created, all lyrical topics have been sung about and most possible melodies have been written. What we have now is a fusion of things of the past with a modern twist. So, seeking for authenticity in that is pointless in itself.

As for artists writing their own music, I really think it's important and what separates an artist from a performer. But then again, everybody has a writing credit on their songs these days, so who knows?

At the end of the day, each and every one believes what they want to believe. If they feel the need to deem their fave "authentic", they'll find a way to create an argument to support that claim. Just enjoy the music and don't care if it's "authentic" or not imo.

That's inaccurate. We have yet to explore every aspect of music. What you hear in popular styles is hardly a fraction of what can be achieved through music. Even classical music had it's limits and refused to break through them for fear of falling on deaf ears. We, as humans, settle, and by settling we don't explore any further than what is comfortable. We have yet to try everything that is possible in music, and given the advancements in technology breaking new grounds, we will never see the end of music's capabilities. There's far too many unwritten melodies, harmonies, rhythms, time sigs, instrumentations, etc. for us to have reached the apex of music. Hell, we've barely had music for 25% of the time we've been on Earth; pop music for not even 1% of that, so yeah, we're not done.

O/T: Authenticity in music depends on whether a given piece of music was executed the best it could've possibly been executed, then it all depends on whether credit, inspiration, and origin is all accurate and relevant. Whether this is important or not depends on whether the listener is okay with hearing similar ideas engineered in different (enough) ways. For a song to be entirely genuine, it must come from a truly pure form of thinking outside of society, educational thought, and relatable background. Difficult, but not entirely unachievable.