Authenticity and Pop Music: the cases of Britney Spears and Sia

Kira's most recent post on Florida Georgia Line sought to delineate some of the factors that earn a group near-universal disdain, taking as her examples such disdainful groups as Nickelback and Creed.  Several of the factors that Kira identified as crucial to earning this level of disdainfulness fall under the category of authenticity, or lack thereof.  The idea that artists should be 'authentic' is tied larger concepts in Western culture about the imperative of originality for the genius--in other words, we value those who come up with innovative, new ideas, and we tend to see these genii as working independently, often in opposition to what is popular.  In this paradigm, genius artists also tend to skew male, which is not necessarily within the theory, but was at one point linked to gender: since men could not create life without the help of women, their creative tendencies were channeled elsewhere.  Hideously archaic?  Yes, but this paradigm continues to govern how we talk about 'good' and 'bad' music today.  The genius paradigm helps explain why the sell-out is so reviled and why the canon of art music so heavily favors men--even when discussing contemporary art music.

I bring these notions up because I want to talk today about two artists who break this paradigm, but are still subject to its strictures.  One is frequently viewed as a sell-out with limited artistic value, yet her career has reshaped the world of pop music.  The other is an anomaly within pop music, since she fits the concept of genius in some respects, but adheres to few of the expectations that we have of pop artists.  I am talking, of course, about Britney Spears and Sia respectively.  Both of these artists simultaneously meet and thwart our expectations of what a 'genius' can do, while demonstrating how complex our understanding of pop music can (and should) be.

Britney Spears

Go ahead, hate on Britney.  She doesn't write her own songs.  She doesn't sing her own songs in concert.  She relies on auto-tune for her albums.  She can't act (okay, this one may be fair).  She is nothing more than a Disney star transformed into sexy, sultry pop star--so basic.  And yet, I defy you to name another pop star working today who has had as many iconic moments as Brit Brit.  I plan to pepper this post with random ones.

What Britney can do--and can do better than almost anyone else in the biz--is perform.  And that is what she does best.  She can do so in lives shows, as seen above, and she is famous for having done so at award shows:

I saw a documentary once where it was revealed that actually, Brit Brit is afraid of snakes.

I saw this when it aired.  And I remember where I was.  It was Notable.

She is also justly famous for iconic video moments.  Many, many video moments:

These first three are all from the same freaking video

Of all the songs above, perhaps 'Circus' best sums up what Britney does best.  All eyes do fall on her in the center of the ring and we keep watching for what she will do.  The lyrics 'Don't just stand there watching me, follow me,' with their slight syncopation, make clear that not only are we 'gazing' at her, but that she relishes the attention.  Her songs are heavily produced to be successful, but I think the 'it' factor that has kept Britney relevant is precisely her:

I don't care how many 'handlers' Britney needed around her to make these moments happen.  The end result is that she was the one who delivered (to make a football analogy here, this is like saying that Tom Brady is a 'system quarterback,' which is all well and good, but he is still Tom Freaking Brady, and he still has more Superbowl rings than any other active QB and LEAVE TOM BRADY ALONE).  She is a consummate performer.  Note that I did not say 'singer,' because I don't think that she is necessarily a consummate singer; of pop stars working today, there are better examples on a technical level, such as Lady Gaga and Beyoncé.  However, detracting from her artistry for not creating her own material has always struck me as odd.  There is no question in my mind that the 'creative genius' paradigm is afoot whenever that happens.  To say that Britney is an inferior artist because she doesn't perform her own material is bizarre.  It's like saying that Meryl Streep is somehow a bad actress because she reads other people's words.

Repeatedly bringing such striking performances to life, that is a skill. And it is one at which Britney reigns supreme.

A reminder to choose what you make iconic carefully.

Sia

Readers of SGS, I have a confession to make: in late 2012, I pretty much stopped listening to pop music.  Shocking, I know.   My primary mode of consumption was the radio, but I started noticing more and more that what was on was just....well.....bad.  Everything sounded either like Rihanna's 'Birthday Cake' (NOT GOOD) or like Lil Wayne rambling over some slow jam.  Mostly, it was a morass of sameness, badness, and channel-change-inducing ennui.  Instead, I went to podcasts, and I pretty much never went back.  Yes, I felt very old when this happened.

However, there were a few exceptions (I will admit to Drake's 'The Motto' being one of them.  Don't hate.  Canadian solidarity, man).  And a few others that I didn't absolutely hate:

These songs are not completely terrible, unlike Rihanna's 'Birthday Cake'

Connoisseurs of pop music have already noticed the common denominator here.  All three songs are, in some way, the work of Sia: she wrote the lyrics to 'Diamonds; and she both performed the vocals for and wrote the lyrics to 'Wild Ones' and 'Titanium.'  Those who are not connoisseurs may be asking who exactly Sia is.  That is a great question.  It is extremely notable that she does not feature in either video for which she provides vocals, which is highly unusual for a 'pop' artist.  In the video, many people lip synch along with the chorus in 'Wild Ones,' making it unclear who the actual singer might be, but quite clear that it is none of the people lip synching (also, can I take a moment here and point out how unintentionally funny 'Girl With Arms Up In Bandeau' is?).  Perhaps she should be better viewed as one of those background singers, like Dido to Eminem in 'Stan' or Ke$sha to Flo Rida in 'Right Round.'  But that view misrepresents Sia's contribution: she is not only a singer, she is also a songwriter and has contributed to a number of hits (in fact, Sia's version of 'Titanium' was originally meant for Katy Perry).  Furthermore, it is a bit hard to say that she is the 'background' singer in 'Titanium,' even though the primary song credit goes to David Guetta, who is a DJ.

Sia now has her first credited major hit with 'Chandelier.'  Even in this video, though, she is wholly absent.  Instead, dancer Maddie Ziegler dances in a frenetic manner, likely representing the inner torment felt by the singer while she is 'swinging from the chandelier' and barely hanging on while partying:

If you haven't seen the SNL parody yet, take a moment and do that.  Also, there is something to be said here about performance, especially at the end when the fact that this is a performance becomes clear when Ziegler bows, but I'll leave that for you to ponder.

Sia conforms in many ways to the genius paradigm (and I will argue that because I think that 'Chandelier' is a genius way of representing the tension that often exists between those who party it up and their motivations...it's a broader metaphor).  She creates her own art.  She performs her own art.  Yet she is not, in my view, a pop star.  One of the most preeminent requirements in pop--as Britney teaches us--is creating notable performances.  Maddie Zielger does this in the 'Chandelier' video, but Sia remains absent. In fact, when she performed on Dancing with the Stars, Sia was 'hidden' in favor of the dancers:

What the cases of Sia and Britney demonstrate is that an understanding of pop music through the lens of the genius paradigm is inherently flawed (arguably, evaluating any type of work through the genius paradigm is flawed).  There are too many other factors that contribute to a notable and noteworthy pop experience, perhaps most importantly performance.  To subject these stars to the same critical tropes makes no sense.  Instead, we should recognize that pop depends on a wider scope of people for its success.  We are accustomed to the idea that the performer should be equated with the artist, but I am suggesting that Sia and Britney demonstrate to us that these roles can be divided.  Both make great art, but in very different ways.

Kim Kardashian and Anti-Muses

My consideration of the Vogue cover got me thinking about KK as a type of modern anti-muse, and more generally about the idea of the muse in the first place.  Muses have been around for a long time, as you undoubtedly know, dating all the way back to the Greeks.  They were supposedly the inspirational force that helped artists create their products.  The Greeks had nine of them, each of which represented different disciplines:

It's funny how 'Thalia, Muse of Comedy' and 'Salome, Beheader of John the Baptist' could be easily confused in this depiction

The concept of the muse has been around for a very long time, likely because anyone who is creative knows how hard creativity can be.  What causes that spark of inspiration (or lack thereof)?  That being said, the role and personification of the muse has changed drastically.  In fact, I recently argued (on a different blog) that Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's Misery is effectively a muse, only a nightmare version of one, because sometimes you need some tough love to complete your creative work.  By which I mean, sometimes you need to be hobbled and in fear of your life to write a novel.

 However, there can also be those who hinder creativity.  For the sake of this post, I am calling them anti-muses (which is oversimplifying the situation), and they too have a long history.  In the modern context, anti-muses are women (but not always), which is a reflection of how genius has been construed over the past couple of centuries in Western culture (a brief history of genius, from Antiquity to present, is summarized in this review of Darrin M. McMahon's book about this topic).  Around the eighteenth century, a genius was viewed as a man who possessed great talent, but who had to struggle with it to share this talent with the world in its truest artistic form.  Women could not share in genius because they had other roles, the most important of which was motherhood.  They could create life, whereas men could create art.  Gendering genius was inherent in the concept from its origins in Antiquity, but became particularly powerful during the nineteenth century, when (European) women would willingly give up their creative endeavors because they felt their contributions were less meaningful than those of men.  My background is music, so I can think of numerous female composers whose outlook adhered to this philosophy.  Clara Schumann, for instance, was hailed as a great interpreter of genius in her piano performances, but her compositions were deemed less worthy of attention--and the genres that she chose were most often the types of pieces that would be performed in the home (such as Lieder and piano works) rather than grandiose, public performances of symphonies or operas.  Fanny Mendelssohn gave up composition once she was married because she felt it was no longer an appropriate activity for her with her domestic and familial obligations.  Perhaps the most maligned figure is Alma Mahler, whose penchant for creative men led to this delightfully misogynistic summary of her life, portraying her as combination slut, magically temptress, and harridan:

If you're interested, Alma Mahler's compositions are very interesting.  She gave up composing while married to Gustav Mahler because he felt that her work impinged on his genius.

By now, you're probably thinking of one of the best-known recent anti-muses, Yoko Ono, whose relationship with John Lennon was the subject of much ridicule during his life.  Ono's fame as an avant-guard performer and artist has been re-evaluated since then, as has that of Alma, Fanny, and Clara, which I feel is a great step forward in putting the genius/muse model aside and acknowledging that creativity can stem from either direction, without a need for gender--this trope remains stunningly persistent.  There is even a (sort of) nice song about Yoko (even though it mocks her artistic creativity, and implies that John 'gave up musical genius' for her):

In fact, there are select cases where both couples can be admired for their creative ability on almost equal footing.  Let me present the couple (and work) that I think most fully represents the ideal of the creative pair today:

(If you're curious, Beyoncé did contribute to writing this song, so she is not simply a performer here).

There is a peculiar dynamic between KK/Kanye and Jay-Z/Beyoncé, at least in the court of public opinion.  I have no idea what kind of dynamic they share behind closed doors.  Jay-Z and Kanye have a professional relationship in that they have collaborated on albums (Kanye produced The Blueprint's 'Izzo (H.O.V.A.)'....okay, maybe he is a genius).  One of Kanye's most infamous moments occurred because of Beyoncé, when he interrupted Taylor Swift on stage at the 2009 MTV Video Awards to definitively state that Bey deserved the best video of the year (or possibly of all time).  More recent news stories have speculated that Jay-Z does not want to be best man at Kimye's wedding if it will be later featured on a reality show and that Beyoncé may go so far as to boycott the event all together.  Are they friends?  Enemies?  Frenemies?  Is KK Kanye's Beyoncé?  Is this an Illuminati plot?  No lack of speculation.

I suspect that part of this public perception of a peculiar dynamic involves creative inequality.  As I mentioned in my previous post about the Vogue cover, many (most?  all?) of us find KK to be a bewildering celebrity.  She has seemingly attracted an enormous amount of attention for accomplishing almost nothing.  How is this possible?  No one has cracked this code yet--I mean, there have been proto-KKs, such as Paris Hilton, but they seem to have faded more quickly.  If anything, KK may be even less talented than Paris.  I submit to you their singles:

Shut up, I kind of like 'Stars are Blind.'  2006-2007 was a tough time for pop music:

• Brit Brit was out of the zone
• Rihanna was okay but not 'Please Don't Stop the Music' good
• Lady Gaga was just a sparkle in Stefani Germanotta's eye
• Beyoncé was all Dreamgirls, which is fine, but not 'Crazy in Love'

This song is terrible.  It has no redeeming qualities.  In fact, it may have one quality that makes it even worse: it was 'released' as part of an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.  There, you feel really icky now, don't you, and you want to go get your ears cleaned out with soap.

Perhaps KK peaked at the right time, with the advent of media like Twitter and reality shows becoming the predominant genre of television.  But if she is famous due to luck (and money), then what is even more bewildering is the fact that she is engaged to Kanye West.  Certainly, we should all be skeptical about his claims about his own genius, but he has had a lasting and profound effect on popular music.  It is hard not to ask questions, Arrested Development style, about what KK is doing with him.

All of this skepticism came to a head when Kanye released his video to 'Bound 2,' a video that, once you have seen it, you can never unsee (and I am not embedding to this post for that very reason).  I likely do not need to detail what happens, since it was all the talk for a week or two there, even inspiring parody videos and an episode of 'South Park.'  In a sense, Kanye wins again, because he has created a work that is now inextricably linked to the song, just as Michael Jackson did with 'Thriller,' Britney Spears did with 'Baby, One More Time,' and Nirvana did with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'  This is part of the role of the video, of course: to provide a lasting visual association with the song.  But the criticism (positive and negative) leveled against Kanye for 'Bound 2' ranged drastically, from uncanny valley, to covert critique of American society, to Kanye's Gigli moment.  Honestly, I am still not sure what to make of it, but I'm still not sure what to make of Yeezus as a whole, so maybe that is not surprising.  If you are the type of person who feels that Kanye is being led astray by KK, then you are probably in the appalled camp, since it seems that a talented man is under the spell of a talentless hack and creating a sensationalistic video with little artistic merit.  In other words, an anti-muse.  You might even blame all of Yeezus--undoubtedly Kanye's most divisive album to date in terms of public approval--on KK.  This falls into the 'it's all her fault that the genius has lost his touch' trope of the anti-muse, much like those New England Patriot fans who blame Gisele for the lack of recent Superbowls.  The gendered genius returns, bereft of the muse he needs to succeed.


 I would like to suggest that KK may have been Kanye's muse for longer than was immediately apparent.  One of the (bizarre) facts that has been revealed in the course of their relationship is that Kanye has waited for years to have the opportunity to date KK, but she was always with football players or basketball players or busy recording the single worst song ever to emerge from a recording studio and I am including 'Popozao' in that assessment.  This unrequited desire may have surfaced a bit earlier in Kanye's career, because if this video is not meant to depict KK through its blatant inclusion of a KK look-alike, then I will watch 'Bound 2' again by choice:

As with my post about the Vogue cover, I am left with more questions than I began with:

1) What on earth would it say about Kanye and KK's relationship if this is meant to be some kind of Kanye fantasy?  Because I HAVE A LOT OF QUESTIONS.  Beautiful, dark and twisted, indeed.

2) These lyrics seem remarkably acute in describing KK, particularly her love of all things material.  But they seem remarkably inaccurate in describing contemporary Kanye (trips to Florida?  He hangs out in Paris now).  This leads to another great puzzle in the Kanye canon: has Kanye changed?  Is Kanye allowed to change?  (Yes)  Has he lost it because of these changes?  Were these changes effected by his anti-muse?   Or is his anti-muse symptomatic of these changes?  Can change be good?

The general public opinion seems to be not in this case, as evinced by the countless YouTube comments asking 'What happened to you?' on Kanye's more popular tracks (like this one.  I had to add 'Homecoming' because it has been stuck in my head for the past week or so).  There is a larger question here about artistic development--one that I hope to address in a future post--and I would always caution against mapping biography too closely onto artistic products.  But this is my question time, and these are my questions.