'Sincerity' in Music

An eye-roller if ever there was one, right?

Right.

(This is an addendum of sorts to our latest discussion in the ‘dis hyped releases’ thread.)

At first glance, critiques of sincerity in music are similar to putdowns of authenticity in that they seek to right the wrongs (whether real or imagined) inflicted by decades of institutional rockism, the hobgoblin being an excessive or altogether misguided glorification of the ‘genuine’ artist, presumed to be at one with their art in a manner that purportedly bypasses artifice (mastering ‘real’ instruments, writing original songs, resisting ulterior commercial motives, exuding ‘soul’, etc.). As a corrective to this crude neo-Romantic view, which puts the creative genius on a marble pedestal and legitimizes a conception of aesthetics that ultimately gives little credence to the works themselves, deconstructing sincerity is a necessary gesture.

It seems fair to argue that a song is never more convincing by dint of the artist (or artists’) supposed sincerity, if only because one cannot know for certain what is truly ‘meant’ when a given piece of music comes into being. Artists themselves are often unsure as to the exact process that led them to fashion such and such a work, and even when they (think they) know what they’re doing, there is no guarantee that the audience will pick up on their intentions, including (somewhat perplexingly) when these are stated outright, whether in an accompanying explicative essay/interview or, more rarely, as part of the work itself.

But what if sincerity hinges upon the work of art? Is it then projected by the music itself, without immediate reference to its maker(s), or is belief in a given piece’s sincerity or insincerity a mere projection on the listener’s part? Or is this a false dichotomy, one that is, quite simply, silly and undeserving of our attention? Perhaps.

As a baseline, however, I’d like to posit these two simple observations, which may in fact be utterly bogus (I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this), but that don’t strike me as unreasonable per se: 1) when I dabble in creative work, I am usually able to distinguish between moments of sincerity, which genuinely feel like I am expressing something that is in tune with whatever it is I then happen to be feeling, and moments of insincerity, when I am clearly just going through the motions and latching on to formulaic bits of would-be inspiration that make me feel like I'm lying to myself (with the proviso that these ostensibly formulaic passages may turn out to be more valuable and interesting than the seemingly sincere ones in retrospect, once the work is ‘finished’, regardless of whether they were ‘meant’ or not), and 2) my state of mind, and hence my psychological experience of ‘sincerity’ (no matter how fleeting and minimal) during the creative process, is likely to leave a mark on the piece I am working on, which means that some measure of sincerity is potentially imprinted upon the work, and that said mark may subsequently and in theory be recognized as such by the listener/reader/viewer/spectator, etc.

Even if we allow this to be the case, these residual ‘fingerprints’ of sincerity are hardly a sign that the work is a success (whatever that means), so I don’t think they ought to be used as a critical sieve, to separate the chaff from the wheat. More importantly, they are so nebulous and transitory as to be quasi insignificant – hence the temptation to dismiss this whole line of inquiry from the outset. And yet…

…they are there, are they not?

I, for one, cannot rule this out completely. Setting aside, once again, the all-too fraught question of these traces’ aesthetic *value*, I don’t think it entirely senseless to speculate as to their existence, which is why spotting apparent moments of ‘insincerity’ while listening to a particular piece of music isn’t all that far-fetched a response, even though – and this is key – I may be (and no doubt am, most of the time) quite off when discriminating between the ‘truly’ sincere and the insincere within a single album, for instance. And this doesn’t even account for the somewhat paranoid yet not inconceivable scenario wherein all of these supposed traces of sincerity are parsed as insincere depending on who the listener is and/or what their current circumstances are, just as the artist’s spells of insincerity as they arise during the music-making process can all be ‘falsely’ interpreted as sincere, rendering communication all but moot.

So that’s a fuckton of caveats – might as well just let it all crumble, no?

I suspect that, in most cases, we spontaneously and no doubt cruelly go ‘this is bullshit’ when hearing music that sounds phoney to our ears, and leave it at that, just as we’re perfectly willing to go along with the fiction according to which the artist(s) is/are sincerely expressing something profound as long as the music charms us (perhaps our ephemeral, possibly insincere belief in this sincerity enhances our appreciation of the music, even). For professional music critics, who devote a considerable amount of time to figuring out what makes the work tick beyond these admittedly philistine intimations of ‘sincerity’ (or the lack thereof), this kind of talk can only be irritating, and I honestly sympathize. But the subjective judgment of amateurs has a limitless arsenal at its disposal, and I think it fair to include the problematic category of ‘sincerity’ therein.

So yeah, having just reread this, there are a few points I myself could easily quibble with, but I’ll let them stand as is and see what you make of this whole musical ‘sincerity’ business.

I generally don't think of making or listening to music in terms of expressing something that can be true or false, which is the only way the concept of "sincerity" makes sense to me.

Seems like Pam is getting at some concept of artistic truth, which would be different from factual truth. I take it to mean something that is the opposite of cutting corners to get a result. Did you spend the time crafting the Platonic ideal of whatever you are making or did you just roll with the first thing that kind of fit?

*Pom

Hm, that wasn't quite what I got from this:

moments of sincerity, which genuinely feel like I am expressing something that is in tune with whatever it is I then happen to be feeling, and moments of insincerity, when I am clearly just going through the motions and latching on to formulaic bits of would-be inspiration that make me feel like I'm lying to myself

I'm not saying it's a bad way to look at music, or that it doesn't work for a lot of people, btw.

Does this become more of a factor in music with lyrics and singing vs instrumentals?

Perhaps lyrics are a factor, perhaps not. If a musician is hired to play an instrumental piece they strongly dislike, for instance, might their distaste be audible, be it only as an underlying indifference towards the performance itself? Conversely, do musicians play ‘better’ or with ‘more feeling’ when they sincère believe in the value of the material they are playing?

(There are countless ways of approaching this particular problem, so think of my original post as spitballing more than anything.)

*sincerely

French autocorrect ftw

I think of authenticity and sincerity as poses, they're just as much part of performance as lyric composition and vocal delivery etc. They're one of many ways to provoke a reaction in a listener. There is plenty of music I love because I "believe" in its self-contained narrative construction, but there's also plenty of music that I love because of its artifice. The problem is that when music wants you to believe it is sincere and seems inauthentic, or when it wants you to be wowed by glamour and it fails to dazzle, that's when I switch off, but to use sincerity as the main measure of value is not always valid - sometimes a banger is just a banger that you want to hear go bang.

it might sort of be a thing but even then might be pretty much impossible to identify idk

the most obvious appearance of sincerity that comes to mind is one that is telegraphed by some element of the performance or in the structure of the work. when this fails for a listener is probably the most obvious appearance of insincerity. except for cases where an appearance of insincerity is the point in which case...

I still don’t understand what separates this from the whole authenticity debate it resembles at first glance

were the sex pistols being sincere about meaning it, man?

I think criticising music in terms of authenticity and sincerity is a dead-end and I've thought that since ILX got it fucking infinitely wrong about PC Music.

Where someone like Taylor Swift is open to criticism is in terms of arguably compromising her art for sales. A lot of major artists do this, of course, but making albums really long to maximise streaming plays and remaining decidedly risk-averse a majority* of the time are certainly two criticisms I'd squarely aim at her. I've called her 'dead-eyed' before, but that has more to do with what I've perceived as cheaply-bought catharsis. I'm sure it's still sincere but it feels condescending at times. Anyway, she's a Big Pop Artist, she can handle herself.

*her latest album bucks this now and then, thankfully, but it does require a bit of gold-panning

She made overlong albums before streaming era and her disapproval of streaming services is widely documented.

well I have no idea why her albums are so long then but it smacks of caring more about ubiquity than the art. at least when The 1975 do it it's to create a massive & kaleidoscopic experience

but this is the point: I wouldn't call it insincere

if you're a singer that isn't a recording artist, you spend your life singing many things you don't mean. I made $500 a caroling season singing a capella religious Christmas tunes despite being an Atheist. it was rewarding from a musical and financial standpoint.

it's also really easy to fake sincerity as a performer, it's practically a skill taught to most young performers when they're just starting

"Why do you say everything
As if you were a thief?
Like what you've stolen has no value
Like what you preach is far from belief?"

moments of sincerity, which genuinely feel like I am expressing something that is in tune with whatever it is I then happen to be feeling, and moments of insincerity, when I am clearly just going through the motions and latching on to formulaic bits of would-be inspiration that make me feel like I'm lying to myself

for me, I just love creating music and singing/etc, particularly in a choral context, even if the lyrics are about fucking a walrus. I miss it a shit ton right now - there are two breast cancer fundraisers my close friend puts on a year, and both had to be virtual this year, and that meant our 'choral' experiences were made by all submitting individual recordings. it's not the same.

even beyond singing though, I used to play guitar in a more public setting, and I could play a song I hated, but enjoy the actual act of forming the song, playing the instrument, putting my own stamp on it, despite hating the song.

Johnny Mathis will get through to us all eventually.

xp

So far the consensus appears to be that it's at best undetectable (which comes closest to my position), at worst a total red herring, which is fair and what I have often argued myself, but… it still feels like a bit of a cop-out to me, and maybe part of the reason why is because I've spent an inordinate amount of time listening to different recordings of single works of classical music and in some cases the performances *sounded* less affected (or, in some cases, would-be 'objective') than others, which gives off an imagined whiff of 'sincerity', no matter whether it matches the artist's own psychological experience, and on that basis it doesn't seem all that absurd to wonder about whether said experience can be communicated unto the performance/work. So while my verdict is 'probably not, no', I still find this to be a bit of a nagging question, whereas most of you appear to be comfortable with its complete dismissal, which is in many ways a sensible approach.

I still don’t understand what separates this from the whole authenticity debate it resembles at first glance

They overlap a great deal, no doubt about it, but authenticity covers a broader range of concerns, I think, including, say, charges of cultural appropriation (you can be very sincere about cribbing someone else's culture and get called 'inauthentic' by unsympathetic critics).

i often think of this scene from 5 Easy Pieces (though obv Nicholson is a total asshole here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbUvLbgnxIQ

This fits better here than the dis hyped releases thread

Though it’s true, I typically cringe away from critique which is grounded in projecting onto the artist, especially in a context where one is not motivated to extend the artist the benefit of the doubt and doubly-especially when the projection goes to whether the artist is authentic or being sincere - I mean, positive projections are also usually a bad idea but at least more thought, and more content actually derived from the object of critique, tends to go into them.

― Tim F, Saturday, December 12, 2020 7:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like there's this inherent trap though, I do agree with you in broad terms but the way culture and stan culture and the industry is so incredibly invested in the "intense personalization" unperson mentioned upthread, like christ there were practically explainers about Pete Davidson references on that Ariana Grande record, and I've read similar things about Swift like oooh massive shade to this ex boyfriend...I feel like you're constantly being told no this isn't up for interpretation - this is how X album is positioned in this star's life journey right now and here's x and x and x lyrics about it

So I get that projecting high school feelings on to a pop star's persona or your impression of them as a person isn't a great way - in the abstract - to judge art, it feels like a lot of things in late capitalism, it's basically made inescapable (like using Uber or something) by forces much bigger than you, but you're a dumb asshole if you do it

Another example more recent is Megan Thee Stallion, like maybe you can step it back in your own mind and not interpret it through the lense of the Tory Lanez incident but it's pretty hard to say people are dimwits for doing so when literally the entire coverage of the album is framed that way and then she does interviews about it and starts the album with a song about it

So I mean I think it's natural when albums are framed in these ways, as outgrowths of the life journey of famous people who we all feel a faslse sense of intimacy with because of social media, that people are going to judge the art based on their gut feeling about the sincerity of the person making it

Don't know if that makes sense

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, December 13, 2020 8:06 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

It is an overwhelming thing, sometimes, for me to grasp that in the eyes and ears of the consumer, the personal lives of these pop stars effectively intersects with their art as vividly as WWF wrestling, and yet these are "their actual lives" and not constructed fictions

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, December 13, 2020 8:10 AM (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wrestling is a great comparison, that weird mix of the real person, the character they play, the scripted events and real events all intermingled

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, December 13, 2020 8:13 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It is an overwhelming thing, sometimes, for me to grasp that in the eyes and ears of the consumer, the personal lives of these pop stars effectively intersects with their art as vividly as WWF wrestling, and yet these are "their actual lives" and not constructed fictions

If the major record labels still had any real power they could do what the Hollywood studios used to do in the 20s and 30s - pair off their young talent for publicity purposes and send them out on "dates" which would then be covered in the press. Of course the ubiquitous/atomized amateur surveillance network - artists' and celebrities' comings and goings being documented by fans in the moment wherever they happen to be - renders that impossible, too.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, December 13, 2020 8:57 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pom I don't know what you look like irl but the past two days I can't shake the image of Linus looking for the The Great Pumpkin

lol, that's me!

are u trying to tell me that there are 2 canadian people who don't know each other irl

It's a big country, you know.

come on, what're ya talkin aboot

I'll let you in on a secret: our aboots are insincere, we're hamming it up for the US crowd.

I don't listen to music for emotional expression or whatever you would call the activity that could be done or experienced sincerely or not. One of the reasons I haven't watched films for like 25 years is that I find it impossible to avoid experiencing the art in those terms, and I dislike that. But I experience music in other registers, where emotions could be a side-effect but not at all the point.

the only way I could explain this would be in mathematical terms, like the relation between elementary things like the integers & abstract structures. while everything supervenes on the relations amongst the integers, one can experience the higher-level relations in non-reductive terms. the analogy here would be that emotional responses are like the integers & sincerity like a relation amongst the integers, but other modes of response are built on those objects & relations & have their own resonances. when I read musicians on their art it's these other modes I want to glimpse, and of course it's what I listen for.

otherwise I wouldn't know how to make sense of say James Brown at the Apollo.

wd u call music the sum of an infinite series then

no

Anyway, pursuant to "authenticity" and "sincerity"-- I think it's just a result of the compositional process, with the "composition" including an acknowledgement of the creator's assets, biography, and the context within which the work is created.

This is to say: any artist at any given time is not just "making work", but is also tasked with creating work that is attached to both their personhood, and the context (i.e. time and space) of its creation. Ives was writing some piano shit, but he was also "writing some piano shit while holding down a day job in insurance", and also "writing some piano shit that anticipated pomo theory, dovetailing with Satie's own ideas", and also "writing work that would be ignored immediately, but awarded the Pulitzer many years later".

The "authenticity" of Ives' music-- or Bach's, or Kate Bush's, or Taylor Swift's, or Bobby Shmurda's-- is tied to the biography and context. Sometimes the artist makes conscious compositional decisions to relate the work to their biography or the context of its creation (KB writing about her son, TS writing about an ex, Shmurda writing about crime). Other times an artist might seek to subvert this connection ("Jenny From The Block"). Other times an artist might blithely ignore biography and context, and allow the listener to make their own conclusions.

But yeah, I don't think it's possible to listen to music discretely removed from biography or context. I think that "sincerity" and "authenticity" are a little too ham-fisted as observations-- we all know TS is a rich white lady with tonnes of money who has done some extremely admirable things in her adult life and some other less-admirable things. How effectively does her new songs interact with context and her own personhood? How effective is she at achieving her goals? (which, to my mind, is the goal of any pop star: to create a massively saleable work that relies upon the capacity for the listener to project their own experiences on to the musical material).

And no, I don't know any of the other Canadian regulars on this board irl except Craig D. and sean; I met s1utsky at a party once, maybe twice

Sincerity is not an attribute inherent in an artwork, but a perception the spectator brings to it, and then projects back onto the artwork and maybe the artist. The artist may try various techniques to arouse this perception in their audience, or in rare cases might eschew it.

This topic made me think of Christgau's Bee Gees reviews; he criticizes Main Course for "an unpleasant tension between feigned soulfulness and transparent insincerity", but says of Children of the World, "their closed-system commitment to a robot aura renders embarrassing questions about whether they mean what they're singing irrelevant, which is good". So what is bad about the earlier album is that they are trying to hide insincerity, whereas a year later they have embraced it.

I don't think it's any less useful a critical yardstick than saying if a record "rocks" or not. Everyone will have their own judgement about it.

Iced Earth have a song that the guitarist (Jon Schaffer) wrote about a best friend growing up at the friend's mother's behest. It sounds like he wrote it in five minutes as an obligation:

"I had a friend many years ago
One tragic night he died
The saddest day of my life
For weeks and weeks I cried"

and it's a crowd favorite that usually ends shows

Recently I've started playing a LOT of viola, like, 2-3 hours a day. I'm learning Bach cello suites. Lillian Fuchs does some amazing recordings of them on the viola-- her performance of the notoriously unplayable 6th Cello Suite is sublime, and led to Pablo Casals to tell her that he preferred that particular suite on the viola, rather than the cello.

I started learning the 6th Cello Suite. There are two different viola adaptations of the work. One keeps it in the original key (D-major), and the other transposes it down a fifth (G-major). The possibility of playing the suite on gut strings (or wound gut strings) is not possible for me... my technique is not strong enough to wrangle the low responsiveness of these strings.

So, already, the authenticity of the performance is compromised-- not playing this 17th century work in the correct time period, nor the correct context, nor the correct instrument, nor (necessarily) the correct key, nor even with the correct strings.

The 6th Cello Suite, as noted by Anna Magdalena, was written mysteriously for a five-stringed instrument. Not strung like a gamba, but in open fifths, like what a transverse stringed player might call a "gran viol". But the range was distinctively "celloistic"-- so, what the fuck was this supposed to be played on?

About thirty years ago it was definitively determined that there was a 17th century instrument called a violoncello da spalla-- five strings, played like a viola, cello range. There are two manufacturers of this instrument, a weird life-coach-y Capitalist out of The Hague whose videos feel like odd motivational speeches, and a much-more-stock Baroque-for-the-people American grump who likes to talk shit about the Dutch guy. A Russian player has mastered it, and plays what we can effectively state is probably "THE" most "authentic" performance of the 6th Bach Cello Suite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbH3JYfRjOQ

I listen to it and hear Malov's exquisitely tasteful (and authentic) ornaments in the Prelude. I hear his artistically divergent (and yet still authentic) decision to make the end of the Prelude plaintive, rather than triumphant. I note that the reverb on the recording is natural room reverb (authentic).

My own thirst for the most authentic experience with regards to this particular suite compels to send this video to any wealthy friend or relative in the hopes that one them takes pity on me and orders me a violoncello da spalla so that I may learn, and perform, this work. I have waking fantasies of being Tafelmusik's go-to performer of the spalla.

Anyway, all this is to say, Taylor Swift is a rich white lady who made an album

Clipping are another group who have often had 'theatre kid', 'insincere', 'not really very street are they' nonsense criticisms thrown at them, because they have a sonically expansive approach to hip-hop. There's nothing insincere about how or why they make their music though, or their belief in their art

Oh and there's another criticism of Taylor Swift right there - money is no object to her, but is she employing violoncello da spalla players on her records? Is she hell lol

I don't think of music as sincere - as if it was a person - but rather as convincing, which has much more to do with craft, including emotional craft. I assume that being a good artist requires sincerity and love and passion, just because of the lifetime dedication it requires, then again you might have a couple Nick Kyrgios for every 100 players, people who either hate themselves or the process, but I don't preoccupy myself with discovering those - the thought never ever touches me.

With that said, I do avoid "insincere" genres which would variously include, say, mawkish tearjerkers or PC music / 1000 gecs to name a few extreme examples. I am sure both the artists and fans genuinely find meaning in it, I just don't connect to it in any way so I pass. To the question of how to correctly describe this gap without presuming of the artist's intentions, well, it should be enough to say 'I cannot love you, you haven't engaged me' and it does not really matter in whom the fault lies (you, poor Taylor, the culture), the 'art dialogue' didn't happen.

If you're puzzled about this, maybe you should also be puzzled that no two person's tastes agree and align perfectly.

(in all seriousness, good luck in your quest! time for canada to rustle up another arts grant imo)

Taylor is employing Rob Moose as her string arranger and that's good enough for me, he's the best

Anyway, all this is to say, Taylor Swift is a rich white lady who made an album

Good posts, fgti. As you can see, it's all about the quest for the Great Pumpkin.

But this talk of playing Bach's 6th Cello Suite on a violoncello da spalla also goes to show that sincerity and authenticity do diverge on a conceptual level. Although drawn to a similarly unattainable goal, historically informed performances seem less quixotic than claims of being able to distinguish between sincerity and its opposite. HIP's tenets are clearly audible when put into practice.

Sincerity is not an attribute inherent in an artwork, but a perception the spectator brings to it, and then projects back onto the artwork and maybe the artist. The artist may try various techniques to arouse this perception in their audience, or in rare cases might eschew it.


not disagreeing but it seems kind of funny to be to discount the fact that investment in an artist personally, especially now, is how stans and hives are experiencing the music

in fact it's actually a pretty complex web of reading the music in the context of social media posts, IG stories, gossip reporting, interviews, a highly developed cast of cinematic universe characters relative to that particular artist (villain Scooter Braun, ex boyfriends, the Kardashians in the case of Kanye), fans are feel more intimate, more PERSONALLY connected to the artist then ever before

which, sure, that's an illusion, but it's pretty hard to say that sincerity or authenticity are gauche or dumb when there's an entire highly funded industry and social media infrastructure devoted to driving that into people's heads

and again and again many artists, say Cardi B, for example argue that it's not artifice, that she is who she says she is in the music, and you can watch her on IG live being that person in real life

some of these arguments, ancient Xgau takes, seem true in some ways but very outdated in others and purposely ignoring the massive sea changes in culture, media and technology that have taken place

Taylor is employing Rob Moose as her string arranger and that's good enough for me, he's the best

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, 13 December 2020 15:50 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh good, haha. I *was* joking with the line about her not putting every unorthodox instrument imaginable on her albums, but equally I'd be curious to hear her push her arrangements further!

Iced Earth have a song that the guitarist (Jon Schaffer) wrote about a best friend growing up at the friend's mother's behest. It sounds like he wrote it in five minutes as an obligation:

"I had a friend many years ago
One tragic night he died
The saddest day of my life
For weeks and weeks I cried"

and it's a crowd favorite that usually ends shows

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Sunday, December 13, 2020 4:35 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Some people find no deeper way to express themselves, and that's fine (if a little embarrassing). I was just asked this morning why we don't cry at burials and how cold it makes us seem, and the explanations I blurted about acceptation and inner sadness didn't seem very convincing to the person. Just different expectations and norms I guess. In that sense, how high do we reserve ourselves the right to set the bar in our expectations from an artist ? There is something a little unfair here: it's okay for me not to cry at my grandmother's ceremony, but on TV maybe we'd appear as a bunch of insensitive bastards.

Just different expectations and norms I guess.

For sure. I mean, paid mourning is a thing in some cultures.

I don't think it's possible to listen to music discretely removed from biography or context.

Of course it is. All of this discussion is centered on personality-driven music, which is to say, pop. (And some slightly more underground music as well, of course: Are the members of Cannibal Corpse sincere when they sing about mutilating women? I don't think so, but do you wish they were? On the other hand, I think GG Allin really was sincere about his performances. That sincerity did not improve or detract from the final product, which was largely determined by what he'd had for lunch before the show.)

Can you listen to the music of Autechre, or Roland Kayn, or even Philip Glass, free of biography or context, though? Absolutely. It's "organized sound," in Varèse's phrase. And what does "sincerity" mean when dealing with someone performing the music of a composer who's been dead for hundreds of years? Which of Glenn Gould's two versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations is more sincere?

Haha, you've met me briefly, fgti.

apparently he fgti about it

Are the members of Cannibal Corpse sincere when they sing about mutilating women?

As I stated, certain conscious (or unconscious) decisions are made by music creators that relate, or subvert, the music to their biography and the context of its creation. Cannibal Corpse singing about mutilating women is not "sincere", but I'm sure that it forms (in their mind, and the minds of their audience) some manner of commentary on the autonomy of women's bodies, just as Randy Newman was not "sincere" in singing "Sail Away", but (in his mind, at least) was making a commentary on the autonomy of Black bodies (at the expense of Black bodies).

Autechre

It is impossible for me to listen to Autechre without noting that the sounds that are generated are made by computers, specifically Max/MSP, which itself contains a politic-- that Autechre would attempt to eschew analog production methods (or more recent modular hoarding) in the creation of their autogenerative compositions. I cannot listen to Autechre, either, without remembering their most famous quote, that their digital music only exists "sincerely" when it is listened to on vinyl, replete with surface noise; this quote, which smacks to me of classism, effectively contrasts (and possibly upends) any blue-collar-geek feelings I get from listening to Max/MSP sounds.

Roland Kayn

Not familiar, but I will digest their music without reading anything about them and get back to you.

Philip Glass

Borne out of the "downtown" Manhattan music scene (in contrast to the "uptown" modernists), I remember him calling the uptown composers/audience "chickenshits", I hear aggressive brutality to his forms, I hear allusions to Schubert that are clumsy in their execution, I think of the fact that he was working as a cab driver when "Einstein" became a hit, I think of his latter-day shift to film composing-- which began with highly ineffective scores for "Hamburger Hill" and "Candyman" and became highly effective ones for "The Illusionist". I think of his cantankerousness and his famous pedagogical tip that circulates among his students: "the most important thing is to get the work finished and out the door, work fast, don't overthink it".

Which of Glenn Gould's two versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations is more sincere?

The two works exist symbiotically. Neither is "authentic", neither is recorded on a clavier, but on a modern piano. The works are more of a commentary on Gould's aging process and his changing politic. I cannot listen to Gould without thinking of the way he aggressively forced singular theses on people ("Mozart is a lousy composer", i.e.) and his lamentably bad composing. I think of his fascination with the North, I think of the image of him driving around wrapped in scarves and gloves with the heat on, I think of my friends who live in his former apartment building on St. Clair West, I think of his moaning and groaning, I think of Bernstein's famously shady introduction to his performance of Brahms at Carnegie.

Which of Glenn Gould's two versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations is more sincere?

I can't speak for Gould's performances of Bach, but I am interested in anecdotes such as this one: Shostakovich's 15th String Quartet, which he wrote near the tail-end of his life, in 1974, at a time when he was crippled with chronic poliomyelitis, is a grim and very explicit study of mortality in six gruellingly slow movements, all marked 'Adagio'. It was premiered by the Taneiev Quartet rather than the composer's usual collaborators, the Beethoven Quartet, because the latter's cellist, Sergei Shirinsky, suddenly died as rehearsals were underway. In 1976, a year after Shostakovich's own passing, the BQ recorded the piece with a new cellist. Given its 'subject matter' and the surrounding circumstances, I don't think it entirely unreasonable to argue that some amount of 'sincerity' may have left a mark on this particular performance of a composition that seems to have been designed with mourning in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv5YNv7yAcw

I don't object to stans or whoever relating to music however they please. What I don't like is when sincerity becomes an all-encompassing defence against criticism: "I happen to know FOR A FACT that Barry Gibb IS sincere!"

Sincerity is not an attribute inherent in an artwork, but a perception the spectator brings to it, and then projects back onto the artwork and maybe the artist.

this is pretty much my take on the issue, it's impossibly subjective

Xpost he wasn't really experiencing night fever??!!

I've looked at the word "sincerity" so much by now it's starting to lose all meaning for me. But I would say that I find the appearance of earnestness or emotional honesty in music more powerful when it's coming from an artist who I perceive as controlled and guarded, because it gives me the impression of the art taking over/ the requirements of art being greater than the artist's need for self-protection. I've talked in another thread about the intense impression of painful honesty I get from Jagger's singing in "Let it Loose," and I think that has more meaning to me because it's coming from someone as typically guarded and self-conscious as Jagger.

The ultimate trap when evaluating or arguing about music. ("Evaluating" sounds completely wrong--when you really connect with something it doesn't work that way.) The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Except when the worst lack all conviction, and the best are full of passionate intensity. It's completely unimportant, to me, what they feel. It's what I feel.

I guess what it comes down to for me is this: I don't care if the artist is sincere or insincere - how would I know? But ineffective emotional manipulation is the worst. When artists shoot for an emotional payoff that I feel they haven't earned, or try to convey an intensity of emotion that doesn't feel real or accurate, that's when they lose me. You can be completely sincere in your intentions or beliefs, and still get something nails-on-a-chalkboard wrong through limited experience or imagination.

it doesn't even have to be "because of limited experience or imagination"! like I would never say that about Mount Eerie/Elverum stuff but I sure don't wanna listen to it! and while I would never question his "sincerity", I do question whether it works as art (for me anyway)

if the Sun Kil Moon guy hadn't turned out to be horrible I feel like that would be another good example of nails-on-chalkboard "real sincerity" to me

I don't listen to music for emotional expression or whatever you would call the activity that could be done or experienced sincerely or not. One of the reasons I haven't watched films for like 25 years is that I find it impossible to avoid experiencing the art in those terms, and I dislike that. But I experience music in other registers, where emotions could be a side-effect but not at all the point.

the only way I could explain this would be in mathematical terms, like the relation between elementary things like the integers & abstract structures. while everything supervenes on the relations amongst the integers, one can experience the higher-level relations in non-reductive terms. the analogy here would be that emotional responses are like the integers & sincerity like a relation amongst the integers, but other modes of response are built on those objects & relations & have their own resonances. when I read musicians on their art it's these other modes I want to glimpse, and of course it's what I listen for.

otherwise I wouldn't know how to make sense of say James Brown at the Apollo.

A lot of what I get out of music has more to do with abstract sensations and images - which can be extremely intense as per Xenakis's "sensual shock" - or with cerebral satisfaction with e.g. parsing a formal relationship between whole and parts, or even the physical satisfaction of how something feels under the fingers, than with the direct expression of an extra-musical emotional experience. (Is counterpoint sincere?) I know people who e.g. write music about a breakup to vent about what happened and how they feel about the breakup but it's close to impossible for me to work that way. I am certainly able to understand and appreciate music in traditionally expressive terms, and engage with it this way when it seems important, but it's not where the primary satisfaction is for me most of the time in my own day-to-day personal experience.

Tbc this is mostly true for me as well, although I obviously lack the technical knowledge that comes with being a musician. The sincerity angle only arises – at the back of my mind – when I'm listening to traditionally expressive music, as you put it.

I don't think of music as sincere - as if it was a person - but rather as convincing, which has much more to do with craft, including emotional craft. I assume that being a good artist requires sincerity and love and passion,

I think this is otm with one caveat that what is convincing to one may not be to another (obviously).

I love Bob Dylan and think about sincerity/authenticity wrt to him a lot. For someone considered the ur-singer-songwriter, his work is rarely confessional and his personae - the Dylan mask - is nearly 100% "fake". He's like the most authentically insincere artist of all time.

Maybe to put it another way - Dylan is very convincing at being Dylan even if that Dylan is 100% a construct.

that Dylan is 100% a construct

100% tho? I mean, maybe, I just think that's a bit too absolutist a stance.

dude what is even real

Men in coonskin caps in pigpens who want $11 bills, obv

xxp it's totally not absolutist!

"Bob is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception."
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/23/bob-dylan-joni-mitchell

takes one to know one

https://dialecticspiritualism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/George-Berkeley.jpg

look into my eyes

do u see now?

I was never real

He's gotta be as close to 100% construct as any artist has ever been.

"Bob is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception."

But he's sincere in his insincerity. Checkmate – mods lock thread plz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8_xzhWC-vI

When
I sing about a tree
I
I really feel that tree

When
I sing about a girl
I really feel that girl

I mean i really feel
Sincere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHjSH-k9vz0

Lol that was my first musical. I sang the bass in that song

#barbershop4life

One aspect of this is that ostensibly heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriters (like say John Denver, James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, Carole King, early Paul Simon) seem to capitalize on a perception of honesty/sincerity/earnestness as part of their contract with their audience.

This constrains them, however, in a way that I think is unfair to them, to art, and to the audience as well. Because it's harder for them to write and sing from the perspective of a persona unless they go to great lengths to point out that they're singing via a persona, which is teh lame.

I feel like it's important to assert artists' right to not be conflated with their characters.

At the same time, I'd be a little troubled if my son were to grow up to be an earnest-sounding folk singer-songwriter and his first song just happened to be called "Fuck You Dad, You Ruined my Life."

This is interesting because when I listen to Bob Dylan I trust and believe him 100%, and it's hard to explain what I mean by this because it's obviously not in any literal sense. A lot of it has less to do with the lyrics and more to do with a quality in his singing.

Like, I feel like there's a distinct difference between Dylan in surrealist mode and someone like, say, Springsteen in his early years trying to imitate Dylan-in-surrealist-mode, and the difference is that however weird the Dylan wordplay is, it always carries this sense of conviction, like that image belongs there and needs to be exactly that way. Whereas Springsteen saying, "The Holy Ghost is the host with the most and he runs a burlesque show" doesn't mean anything, it's all just words. Dylan has that ability to make things real that maybe weren't real before, and that's sincerity enough for me imo.

I guess I also just trust him as an artist, and again I'm not totally sure what that means given how much random bullshit he's put out over the years. But I do.

Lily, I understand that if what you mean by "sincerity" is "this is precisely the song that I set out to make." Re: Dylan.

But I guess the ilxian critique of "sincerity" is that the same could be said of any song, including an aleatory work that incorporates chance, or something written entirely by an AI.

I wonder where this discussion would go if we were to reframe it as 'sincerity', period, on ILE. Would anyone argue that it doesn't really exist in the context of interpersonal relationships either?

(Not trying to make a point about its relevance to music here, it's just something I'm curious about.)

when I was studying film at uni in the late 90s we had a seminar task to list our own criteria for films to be considered part of the canon. I listed "sincerity" as a vital quality, the lecturer was unable to grasp what I meant by this, which gave me a clue that the word had several understood meanings, but had I been older and better able to express myself I would have said that post-modern art of all sorts will always be consigned to the sidelines as it will never take itself seriously enough to be considered canonical. however as that older person I don't know if I agree with any of that, or in fact the idea of a canon as an in-any-sense-useful concept, but do think it's important to distinguish sincerity from "sincerity" any time I talk about it.

and of course be open that one person's sincerity will read as "sincerity" to someone else, and vice versa

more like intentions would be better as with rock music literally meant fuck music and jazz music meant sex music!

Sincerity is def important to me in the context of interpersonal relationships - that's a different issue imo.

The word "sincerity" isn't one I would have thought to use about music without this thread, although when I see people describe music as "insincere" I think I understand what that means. (To me it means "transparently manipulative," but I can see that it means other things to other people.) Maybe sincerity is something I notice more when it's absent than when it's present. There are a lot of songs I like that I wouldn't think to describe as "sincere," but if something seems fake or off or phoned in, for whatever reason, you notice.

To me, the words I gravitate to more are "trust," "conviction" and "accuracy," and those have less to do with the artist's intent than with the artist holding up their side of an implicit agreement about how they use their art and how they represent the human experience. (If representing the human experience is even what they're going for, of course - it may not be.) Where I notice what looks like sincerity on the part of the artist is when it's unexpected (as in my Jagger example upthread), or where I feel like it's compensating for some weakness in the execution: if you feel you know what the artist meant to do, that can bridge over a gap between the idea and the execution, or the weakness can even be a kind of marker of sincerity. Springsteen's "My Father's House," for instance - there are some clumsy lyrics and phrasing, esp. on the album version, but that song radiates sincerity in a way that makes the clumsiness endearing and human.

I'd also like to point out that this of talk of 'sincerity' started with Austin, who wrote (re: Taylor Swift in the dis hyped releases thread): 'it usually feels like there is a lack of sincerity. i feel nothing from what i've heard of that music' and, to some extent, with Sund4r as well, who previously quoted the adage according to which 'all bad poetry springs from sincere feeling'.

What do we with artists who fuck with the idea of sincerity? I'm being reductionist in merely reading him in this way, but does someone like Zappa send-up (corrupt?) the whole category of sincere, or like all deviants serve to reinforce the norm? (I love that one etymology of sincere is 'clean, pure sound'. Lexicographical trolling at its finest.)

xp don't agree with the adage, plenty of bad poetry is pumped out in the form of Hallmark cards by the professionally insincere

I think that in times like these we need the wisdom of William Martin Joel, who wrote:

when I want sincerity
Tell me where else can I turn
Cause you're the one that I depend upon

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

I love that one etymology of sincere is 'clean, pure sound'

See also: 'sine cera' (without wax). It's a folk etymology, apparently, but I quite like it.

I wonder where this discussion would go if we were to reframe it as 'sincerity', period, on ILE. Would anyone argue that it doesn't really exist in the context of interpersonal relationships either?

(Not trying to make a point about its relevance to music here, it's just something I'm curious about.)

― pomenitul, Sunday, 13 December 2020 20:32 (two hours ago) link

I think in some ways this is the right question to ask, or rather, one question we should ask is "what is the relationship between our use of the concept of 'sincerity' IRL and our application of it to music?

So, a couple of things on this from my perspective:

1. "Sincerity" (as distinct from "earnestness") is not typically used as a free-floating qualitative attribute, but rather in relation to specified conduct. If you described a person as insincere, the natural question in response would be "why, would did they do to you?" When we talk about whether someone "means" what they say, even raising the question implies that we are invested, have stakes in, the answer to that question. "Was the witness's testimony sincere?" "Do they mean it when they tell me they love me and only want to be with me?" Sincerity (or its lack) matters if we're placing some level of reliance on its presence.

2. The form of "sincerity" that we do apply generally, and sometimes (though still not typically) in relatively low-stakes contexts, is perhaps more commonly articulated as a sense of fakeness: a sense that someone is performing certain socially-mandated forms (politeness, kindness, feigned interest, mouthing the correct political or ideological platitudes) without genuine underlying investment in them. But, at least in my experience, it's pretty rare for people to make that diagnosis, and extremely rare in the absence of specified behaviour over a reasonably prolonged period of observation. And, again, there is typically something at stake. If you warned a friend at work that a mutual colleague is "fake", it would typically be in the context of something like "don't trust them and don't place yourself in a position where you are vulnerable to them letting you down or betraying you."

3. So, certainly for (1) above, but also for (2) above, the deployment of a diagnosis of insincerity implies a level of closeness to the object being described and a belief that the answer to the question "is this person sincere" matters.

4. By contrast, when someone describes music as "insincere" it's typically used to explain a lack of engagement or investment, and the absence of stakes. "I don't much like his music because I find it insincere." My immediate response to a statement like that is to think, "why, what did it do to you?" Insincere how, and about what? What was the high-stakes context in which you learnt not to trust this music? The phrase implies a level of intimacy with, or closeness to, the subject matter when it's primarily used to explain a lack thereof. In that sense, it typically feels like an unearned judgment. If you don't buy what X performer is selling, fine, but by the same token if you never bought the product in the first place you're not really in a position to go back to the store the next day and complain that you've been sold a fake.

5. So I find that there's often a certain performative irony to describing music one dislikes as "insincere": it's mostly, well, insincere. That's not to say that the thoughts or experiences the concept is deployed to try to describe aren't real. If, to use a random example plucked out of thin air, you're not particularly interested in what an incredibly wealthy white woman has to say about love in her songs and don't care to invest the time or energy to reach a conclusion as to whether they mean what they say or not, that's totally fine. Say that.

6. Given the above, and circling back to (1) above, I find the concept of limited usefulness if it's not attached to anything specific - but then, once it is attached to something specific, it starts to become redundant. If, say, your main issue with an artist from the standpoint of "sincerity" is that her lyrical approach strikes you as just a redeployment of stock-standard formulations of love and romance taken from popular films, young adult novels and hallmark cards, without bringing any new content or perspective to the table, then that explanation is immediately more useful than the overall diagnosis of insincerity.

I think some of what is happening is that we are conflating the performance of the music by the artist and the music itself. Music itself can't be insincere, I don't think. But the performance of it can be, for any number of reasons.

sorry to use the royal "we" there, didn't mean to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw0ayUbqCtM

Um, help. Are we saying that a wealthy white woman cannot ever be read as "sincere"? (By which I mean, does she mean what she says and say what she means?) Virginia Woolf was a wealthy white woman. I think her work has a lot of sincerity in it.

Or is it more that we think she may be being "sincere" by her own lights (as in, meaning what she says and saying what she means)... but we feel that we have leave to not take her seriously because hey, wealthy white woman.

Ditto wealthy white men (Tolstoy, Nabokov, Robert Plant.)

FWIW I've read Tim F.'s post three times and I don't think I understand it at all. Sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8_xzhWC-vI

Performing sincerity in art seems like an expectation of labor, like someone has to do x y z to appear sincere. Not sure I have a point here exactly, but it is interesting. It’s a power play no? This artist has to do this for me to like it doesn’t seem like it’s really allowing art to be what it is on its own terms. Idk. Maybe this is unfair or hypocritically applied.

I guess I think conversations that start from an expectation instead of allowing the art to happen to you & responding to what it *does* do don’t strike me as especially interesting

With TS, maybe it has something to do with her performance of sincerity itself? That is, people don't buy her public persona for whatever reason, and that carries through into perceptions of her music.

Taking sides: Adele "Someone Like You" vs Susanne Sundfør "Undercover"

Both are earnest emotional piano ballads but only the latter really moves me. But the latter is a performance of sincerity: lyrical, vocally, and (in the way it uses space and dynamics) sonically. But those moves are all choices, designed to convey and enhance the idea contained within the song. There's no inherent sincerity to either but one can *feel* more sincere through the aesthetic choices made

Performing sincerity in art seems like an expectation of labor, like someone has to do x y z to appear sincere. Not sure I have a point here exactly, but it is interesting. It’s a power play no? This artist has to do this for me to like it doesn’t seem like it’s really allowing art to be what it is on its own terms.

Well put, this may be close to what I was trying to get at earlier.

Idk. Maybe this is unfair or hypocritically applied.

Totally.

But some artists do clearly want it both ways - to be praised for heartfelt sincerity when it benefits them, and then to retreat into "I'm just a ventriloquist; you're mistaking me for my characters" when it benefits them.

I think I would argue for art "to be what it is on its own terms," as D-40 says. But in practice it is complicated. Lots of us (as listeners and consumers) DO want to feel like we're communing with the actual artist, not the mask he or she is wearing.

xps that's a useful response, Tim. Thanks.

What was the high-stakes context in which you learnt not to trust this music?

I've mentioned this in the past and would rather not delve into it again, but that context does indeed exist, and it ties into a broader distrust of chart pop that I (and many others) have internalized over the years. Put simply: it is the sound of normative bullying, exacerbated by the lyrical fixation on YA/high school themes. I am not personally acquainted with Taylor Swift, of course, and would be hard pressed to credibly call her 'insincere' the way I might a relative or a friend I've known for several decades (I don't think we should be expected to clear such a high bar when shooting the shit about pop stars on ILM, however), but something about her music – which is all I have access to, of course – does evoke a particularly insufferable brand of prom queen that I personally associate with teenage insincerity for reasons having to do with my own history. The music does convey these unpleasant connotations to me – and, anecdotally, to a few other people in my entourage, so while my reaction is subjective, it's hardly unique! – that I don't think you can off-handedly dismiss even though they don't leap out at you (no doubt for reasons for your own) when you listen to Swift's music. In other words, the emotional stakes can be quite high, far removed though we may be from the legal case-scenario you mentioned in your first point.

As for the redundancy charge, which you also brought up in the other thread, I read it as a call to raise one's conceptual (and stylistic) standards when discussing music, since talk of sincerity is almost always lazy and imprecise. I said it before and I'll say it again: I very much agree, and the whole point of this thread is to see what – if, indeed, anything at all – we can get out of 'sincerity' as a critical category beyond the usual clichés.

Lots of us (as listeners and consumers) DO want to feel like we're communing with the actual artist, not the mask he or she is wearing.

Fwiw this is not at all what I listen for if 'the actual artist' = their biographical existence. But if 'the actual artist' = losing yourself in the music, beyond your social being *and* your stage persona, then it's a fiction I am definitely drawn to.

This is why I only listen to instrumental music

so is that 1975 song about sincerity as scary as it sounds

I've mentioned this in the past and would rather not delve into it again, but that context does indeed exist, and it ties into a broader distrust of chart pop that I (and many others) have internalized over the years. Put simply: it is the sound of normative bullying, exacerbated by the lyrical fixation on YA/high school themes. I am not personally acquainted with Taylor Swift, of course, and would be hard pressed to credibly call her 'insincere' the way I might a relative or a friend I've known for several decades (I don't think we should be expected to clear such a high bar when shooting the shit about pop stars on ILM, however), but something about her music – which is all I have access to, of course – does evoke a particularly insufferable brand of prom queen that I personally associate with teenage insincerity for reasons having to do with my own history. The music does convey these unpleasant connotations to me – and, anecdotally, to a few other people in my entourage, so while my reaction is subjective, it's hardly unique! – that I don't think you can off-handedly dismiss even though they don't leap out at you (no doubt for reasons for your own) when you listen to Swift's music. In other words, the emotional stakes can be quite high, far removed though we may be from the legal case-scenario you mentioned in your first point.

This all makes a lot of sense to me - not that I identify with it specifically, but I recognise being affected in strong ways (positively or negatively) by art that calls to mind adolescent experience. And it's not entirely in the listener's head - the specific associations which a given piece of music evokes for you are obviously subjective, but presumably TS's lyrical themes and video clips etc. all feed into that, even if she can't control the end result.

But it mostly feels far removed from notions of sincerity and authenticity, at least to me.

The closest thing I could come up with is an argument that the adolescent world being evoked is itself a kind of weaponised fiction the primary function of which is to exclude people and enforce social hierarchies (a teenage MAGA of sorts). Again, that would make sense to me as critical framework, though at risk of being pedantic, I still wouldn't use "insincerity" to articulate it; in general, people tend to be very sincere about their weaponised fictions, at least at the conscious level. Indeed, it seems to me to lead to quite a different proposition of rejecting that which the music appears to ask you to believe in, in terms that render the sincerity or otherwise of the music and its performer largely irrelevant.

That's perfectly fair. Speaking for myself and myself only, TS evokes the lexicon of sincerity and authenticity because these two are part and parcel of the adolescent experience, which her music so heavily draws upon. At that age, the tension between one's quest for a distinct identity, on the one hand, and the concessions one makes for fear of being ostracized, on the other, is often couched in such language. Adulthood then calls for the abandonment of these notions, and rightly so.

At this point, however, I'm mostly just interested in seeing whether anything can be salvaged from the wreck of sincerity (and authenticity, although, as I pointed out upthread, I think it raises a slightly different set of questions). In my opening post, for instance, I wasn't thinking about TS specifically but rather about whether an experience of sincerity can ever be successfully communicated through art in general. I still don't know and likely never will but I appreciate everyone's thoughtful responses so far!

As an aside, 'TS' keeps putting me in mind of Eliot, so perhaps this whole conversation was secretly about the objective correlative all along.

getting into wrestling has been one of the best things for my professional music coverage career, because the whole idea of kayfabe — presenting the choreographed, or at least planned, as visceral and in-the-moment — is if not just as crucial at least a big part of how music is disseminated even on less commercial levels (citation: my press release-flooded promotions folder). this isn’t to say that it’s all fake, mind you; the emotions and motivations at stories’ roots in music and in wrestling are derived from actual feeling. but the route from feeling to stage isn’t always as direct as it might seem. that makes it exciting!

this isn’t to say that it’s all fake, mind you; the emotions and motivations at stories’ roots in music and in wrestling are derived from actual feeling. but the route from feeling to stage isn’t always as direct as it might seem. that makes it exciting!

otm, re: the winding obliqueness of the trajectory, which in some ways *is* the work of art (and/or performance) itself.

someone has to do x y z to appear sincere. Not sure I have a point here exactly, but it is interesting. It’s a power play no? This artist has to do this for me to like it doesn’t seem like it’s really allowing art to be what it is on its own terms.

afaict this is what pom is doing with these threads, seeking some kind of external justification for an internal dislike

so bizarre to me that a dude who likes the most pretentious metal and prog around is complaining abt "sincerity" w/r/t more popular artists

C'mon, you're confusing me with lj. I'm not big on avant metal (I even complain about it on occasion), I listen to very little prog (mostly the bigger names) and my main hobby horse is notated art music.

At the risk of repeating myself yet again, this thread is meant for a broader and more abstract discussion of sincerity in music – pop wasn't foremost in my mind. I'm not even looking to understand my likes or dislikes itt, it's more about approaching the question from a speculative and exploratory vantage point.

I feel like I decided this question for myself a long time ago and don't feel like being drawn into the quagmire of the original question, sorry if that's a copout.

Anyway seems like most of the arguments Against InterpretationSincerity have been made pretty well upthread.

The Rush thread was just bumped and it occurred to me they might be the most sincere band

Which is interesting because you have a singer trying to convey the sincerity of a separate lyricist.

they are both some sincere dudes

sincerity is fine but honesty is where it's really at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAJ8-W3jVs4

"It's really just a question of your honesty": Rush agree!

haha OK yeah now we can lock thread

But in the same song Rush say that music has only "the illusion of integrity". The question is still in play.

I think I would welcome some critics’ approach to the place sincerity of an artist if I felt that those same critics could discuss the artist’s craft better (what makes them a compelling melodicist? What makes their phrasing so interesting? How do they approach the pop format in ways that sonically draws the listener in? I don’t think these necessarily require any knowledge of theory or anything)

I see a lot of discussion of the contexts around craft - which can lead to discussions of biography and sincerity - and not enough forensic interrogation of the craft as is

The best critics do both IMO (and plenty do); IMO this leads to better level of discussion around how content and context intermingle and co-exist.

Xpost, no they are saying the music BUSINESS offers the illusion of integrity but music itself is pure

^^^
Which itself is such a sincere stance.

Only other contenders for most sincere band might be Minor Threat/Fugazi.

Low are pretty sincere.

have we gone full circle back to indie is real / pop is fake again

Tbf I don't think that view has ever carried much weight on ILM.

well, the whole PC Music fight came as the result of PC Music playing around with the idea of fakeness and artifice. grown adults acted like terrible babies when confronted with this, and ignored the sincere & exuberant musicality of the whole enterprise

I don't think anyone here is arguing that.

A lot of this comes down to recent arguments about a few artists, most notably TS and the 1975.

Rush are p indie tbf.

Feel like this question is some kind of Uncanny Valley Tar Baby of Bad Faith that should not be engaged with directly but only as reflected through a shield or projected through a hole in a paper plate. So many ways for music to be good that to worry about whether the artist is sincere or not seems to beg some kind of question.

otm

The scare quotes are there for a reason.

is this thread abt mj cole?

The scare quotes are there for a reason.

Thought Momus one time said something about Moronic Ironic Scare Quotes but all I could find was me attributing that to him.

This line of inquiry seems to have struck a nerve with you. Interesting.

Underneath the question seems to be some desire to go on a fool’s errand to find a Universal Sincerity Tester similar to a Theorem Proving Machine, like Gödel never happened. Euler (back) to thread!

Because I am not ‘sincere’ and don’t want anyone to know, but you’ve found me out, Encyclopedia Pom!

No, not at all, it's merely a nagging question that bears exploring, whether it yields a theorem or not (spoiler: it does not). I happen to find such things interesting. You seem to be offended by my finding such things interesting, which is… interesting.

xp

And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for this pesky thread!

Sorry. :(

I might find it annoying, yes, you’ve done it again, Holmes, because to me it’s own the order of Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

But what do you really mean, Pom?

Determining whether someone is sincere or not in their art is self-evidently a pointless, nasty business, not worth engaging with on any level.

Being annoyed at musicians who do a weird bad impression of a sensitive guy without actually doing the work of trying to express anything, well, isn't that just a natural reaction?

^this!

Seems apropos:

i was literally a virgin when i wrote the heart in a blender song

— eve 6 feet under (@Eve6) December 18, 2020

Thanks, now I'll have that song stuck in my head for the next 48h.

RENDEZ-VOUS THEN I'M THROUGH WITH YOU

Tweet checks out.

I always connected with this tune and imagined it was pretty sincere without the quotes but I don’t know if I can expect much else to measure up to this standard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWn9ocrMhlE

It's a very good and very moving song that certainly *sounds* sincere and that's ultimately all that matters, yeah.

So that’s all it was about after all, and the rest of this thread was just a kooky dream?

Maybe, maybe not. No one's forcing you to play these speculative games if you don't find them enjoyable, you know.

I mean, I also get a kick out of theological discussions despite my being a nonbeliever.

What about this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D0nMzHjMR8

Perhaps. It clearly seems to be aiming for it fwiw.

This one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftOCvwrygCI

Is sincere synonymous with confessional?

Is this sincere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxp7WVXiXU

The confessional tends to aspire towards the sincere but the sincere doesn't need to be confessional.

What if someone’s being sincerely ironic, or arch? (Sorry, I haven’t read the whole thread.)

Ay, therein lies the rub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EExWrybama8

How about this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU8T7oY0iO8

Just a notch below this one of the scale of sincerity:

just in case there was a demand for an acoustic cover of "I Kill Everything I Fuck"

So sincerity and vulgarity are not exclusive?

Came across this, which might be relevant:

There is a powerful urge to treat performance as a form of autobiography, and since most love songs, in particular, are part of a long chain of melancholy, they are often interpreted as expressions of pain by the singer in question. Even when the same song is sung by dozens of different performers, one of them is usually singled out as the most authentic, often the one who is believed to have lived the song most fully. Holiday understood this inclination better than others, and as she grew older, she seemed consciously to choose songs that underlined what she had become for many: Our Lady of Sorrows.

Racism, drug and alcohol abuse, and the brutality of some of the men in her life were sufficient to justify her mournful repertoire and a style that reinforced it. But suffering and pain are neither necessary nor sufficient to produce a great artist. Holiday was the singer she was because she knew how to rise above the easy pathos of so many of the songs that came her way and to bring a dignity, depth, and grandeur to her performances that went far beyond simply displaying the bruises she suffered.

Szwed, John. Billie Holiday (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group.

Interesting, thanks. That's partly what I was trying to get at with my Shostakovich/Beethoven Quartet anecdote upthread.

See the quote at the end of the first paragraph here: https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/35016/page/37

"I've found that sometimes when you start doing very purified structural things you get really emotional music," Sheff observes. "It's curious and it happens all the time. On the other hand, when you start doing emotional things it can bring in all your habits and not make a very interesting structure."

If this thread were "Sincerity: classic or dud", I'd have gone with dud. It's too rudimentary a way to approach art. Maybe that's a function of my having become a music lover in the early 1980s, when the artifice of pop was as much its subject as concrete things like boys & cars.

That "Blue" Gene Tyranny quote reminds me of a famous André Gide quip: 'C'est avec les bons sentiments qu'on fait de la mauvaise littérature'. It's not so much a denial of the possibility of instilling so much as an ounce of sincerity into the work (which remains a valid hypothesis) as a creative rejection of it.

See also: T. S. Eliot's contention that 'Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.' Except, of course, he snarkily added that 'only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things'. While 'sincerity' is something that the artist is tasked with resisting, there must be something there to resist.

Was ABBA 'sincere'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS2lWkn4g9g