"From Puddle of Mudd to Staind to Creed to Nickelback, the yarling grunge descendents replaced rock’s devil-may-care excitement with blazoned earnestness and sludge. In doing so, they forced a schism between rock and pop, two forms of music which, in terms of style at least, had been creeping closer together over the course of the ‘80s. It took bands like The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Hives, in the early ‘00s, to bring self-awareness and fun back into rock music. Despite their own assertions of what Barker and Taylor would call 'cultural' authenticity (or adherence to a well-defined tradition) in rock ‘n’ roll, they were self-consciously contrived: theirs was authenticity at one remove, a stylistic decision."
Mike Doherty in Salon criticizes notions of authenticity in popular music.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Let’s Just Hope It Doesn’t Do Away with Fun"
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