February 12, 2005
Philip Auslander - "Tryin' to Make it Real"
Auslander, Philip. 1999. "Tryin' to Make it Real" in Performance in a Mediatized Culture . Routledge, 61-111.
Notes:
This essay tracks the the tension between performance and recording in relation to 'authenticity.' "Rock authenticity resides in a dialectical relationship between recording and live performance" [95]. "I am suggesting that the determination of rock authenticity cannot be made on the basis of either visual or aural evidence alone, but only by considering both, and the relationship of one to the other in light of other knowledge the listener brings to bear" [76].
I should note before i proceed that i have issues with this essay. First, i think that the key factor that generates 'authenticity' in music is missing - social networks a.k.a. "friends." It is referenced briefly (and dismissed) in relation to going to concerts with friends.
Authenticity in music is discussed explicitly in "Club Cultures" by Thornton (preceeds Auslander's book) and does a better job of handling that tension, although does not have the depth of this essay.
Additionally, i think that, frankly, rock is dead. Although Auslander deals with the MTVification, he doesn't deal with what 'alternative' did to rock. Post-alternative, rock fragmented so exceptionally that the only thing that is 'rock' is that which doesn't fit into one of many different subgenres. These subgenres have magnified the authenticity argument and because of their smaller sectioning, they have actually pulled in authenticity notions from punk - small shows, authenticity in fandom, "culture" of bands. Rock is no longer resistant in any of its forms (although indie rock, rap rock, etc. ...) -> MTV has pushed this, marking hip hop and rap rock (i.e. Linkin Park) as the new resistance.
Also, there's no discussion about how rock has always been in a precarious relationship with the production of blackness / badness. Even white artists in rock are often discussed in terms of blackness. And this is a lot of the difference of what is rock and what is pop.
Auslander is basically taking a path down the (de)valuations of live performance, recognizing that a primary purpose is to promote record sales [64]. "Only in live performance that the listener can ascertain that a group that looks authentic in photographs, and sound authentic on records, really is authentic in terms of rock ideology" [78].
Recordings are meant to sound real, performances are meant to sound like records. "Rock fan knows that recordings are representations but hears them as reproductions nevertheless" [65] "Because it is well known within rock culture that the sound is manufactured in the recording studio, the visual aspects of rock music performance do not work merely as a secondary confirmation of authenticity established primarily in the rock sound" [79]
"Authenticity can be heard in the music, yet is an effect not just of the music itself but also of prior musical and extra-musical knowledge and beliefs; that what counts as authentic varies among musical genres and subgenres" [66].
Issues around authenticity:
- Exclusionary [70]
- romantic bent where "rock music is imagined to be truly expressive of the artists' souls and psyches, and is necessarily politically and culturally oppositional [70]
- authenticity is deeply connected to anti-commodification and populism [70]
- effect of spontaneity, amplified sounds, american accents, aggressive vocal inflections and masculine performance [70-71]
- performative [72]
- balance of resistance and sympathies of entertainment business [73]
Authenticity is usually treated as essentialist, but Auslander is interested in the ideological concept and discursive effect [70].
"Rock musicians achieve and maintain their effect of authenticity by continuously citing in their music and performance styles the norms of authenticity for their particular rock subgenre and historical moment, and these norms change along with changes in the prevailing discourse of authenticity" [72]
Auslander argues that "rock listeners do visualize the musicians while listening to recordings" [74] - DO THEY???? Or do they visualize the MTV image?
"Listeners steeped in rock ideology are tolerant of studio manipulation only to the extent that they know or believe that the resulting sound can be reproduced on teh stage by the same performers. When that belief is substantiated, the music is authenticated. When it is shown (or even strongly suspected) to be false, the music is condemned to inauthenticity" [82] REALLY????
Auslander moves to Baudrillard and Benjamin.
"The aura must be seen as existing between the recording and the live performance. The aura is located in a dialectical relation between two cultural objects - the recording and the live performance - rather than perceived as a property inherent in a single object, and it is from this relation of mutuality that both objects derive their authenticity" [85].
"The dialectic of recordings and live performance central to rock ideology was deprived of its traditional authenticating function. Live concerts would become what recordings had always been: simulations - recreations of performances that never took place, representations without referents in the real" [86]. (UH-OH) "The crucial difference is that now one recording (the video) creates desire for another recording (the album), not for a live performance of the music" [92] "While the video authenticates the sound recording by replicating the live production of the sound, live performance authenticates the video by replicating its images in real space" [308].
"Technologies therefore 'place authenticity and creativity in crisis, not just because of the issue of theft [of musical texts], but through the increasingly automated nature of their mechanisms" [105]
Notes by me: Auslander seems to be using Benjamin and Baudrillard to back up his view that there is a dialectic, positioning them to challenge the technological development. The goal of this essay is clearly to emphasize the importance of presence (liveness) in music authenticity, an argument that Thornton tears apart as being a fantasy at best. It is Bourdieu that can be used to challenge utopian fantasy of presence.
Category: performance studies
Posted by zephoria at February 12, 2005 11:12 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.zephoria.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/3134
