Oooh... that was so real: the problem with sincerity in music.

If this point is lost on a couple of punks, hippies, and depressed teenagers, then that's only to be expected, after all it's rather nice to think of music as something pure. Commercialism is evil, and art is its antithesis. We've also been brought up with that Wildean idea once an artist does what he thinks his audience wants, he ceases to be an artist. The hippies, in their general disdain for the taste of the masses (and the punks with their violent disdain for it), picked up that ball and ran with it. And we've been living with the hangover ever since.

But the saving grace of hippie and punk music was always that the musicians themselves (if not their audience) mostly understood the truth (or learnt it the hard way). The hippie rockers knew how to operate under strict commercial conditions; ever wonder why songs from that era that are quite clearly about drugs never mentioned them explicitly? Everything was all "6 miles high" and "purple haze", or else they just wouldn't sell. When the musicians themselves don't get it though, that's when things start getting hairy.

I got the idea to write this article while writing a review for Lou Reed's Transformer (hopefully in the same issue). I'm still in two minds over whether Lou Reed thinks he needs to be sincere or not. If so, he's one of the few such musicians who is bearable. Ever read Ryan Adams' blog? Every stupid fucking thought he has goes up there, which ruins the illusion of Ryan Adams: sensitive/cool country rock revivalist, and replaces it with Ryan Adams: Guy who writes "I think I just needed to crap and also I was really hungry at the same time, which is gross, I know, but you know, that shit happens. woah. Why would anyone say this on a blog?" Why indeed. Adams can't/won't separate his public and private personae because he believes that would make him a faker. Someone needs to tell him it's allowed.

At least Adams isn't suicidal. Kurt Cobain killed himself because he thought he was inadvertently selling out by selling too many records. Cobain was railing against the hippie's latent commercial nous when he said he'd never wear a tie-dye t-shirt, unless it was soaked in the blood of Jerry Garcia.

It's always given me a queasy feeling when people wistfully say, "Imagine if Kurt Cobain had lived. Think what he'd be doing now". I really can't imagine someone who died over mainstream success making another good album. I dare say the 4^th or 5^th Nirvana album would've been obnoxious, indulgent noise; a middle finger to everyone who liked ‘Smells like teen spirit' for its melody - and an arcane shibboleth for their real fans. It's a testament to his talent that he had 3 good albums in him before the making of them killed him.

We are growing up though, as urban black music goes mainstream and the last of the classic rock fetishising white boys start wearing baggy jeans, we're starting to get the idea. This is a white thing, because it's an indulgence. Black music, from disco to hip-hop, could never afford to deliberately turn people off, while simultaneously it's usually the edgiest stuff out there. Hip-hop is the music of our generation; even for us white boys. We grow up with a hip-hop mindset, and that comes with a natural knack for what's going to sell. That's not antithetical to indie rock, so let's embrace it.