Sincerity

Is there something to be said for meaning it?

Leaving aside the whole modern/post-modern argument for the moment.

A random Howard Jones tune brought this up.

Nice if you can get it, but I try to avoid it as a criteria.......if we've learned anything from David Bowie it's that you can fake great Rock & Roll.

And all the sincerity in the world ain't gonna get me to listen to most of the freak folk artists (I believe they mean it.....and yet, I still don't care).

i mean it, maaaaaaan


bowie & 99% of corporate rock

Of course sincerity is admirable but not when consciously striven for. It correlates with good art but does not cause it. It is dangerous to praise the sincerity of an artist. To encourage sincerity is to imply it is more important than wit, which is definitely not the case.



Post Edited (09-29-07 17:57)

always be sincere, wether you mean it or not.

sincerity is something i have always somewhat questioned and at the same time i have felt has been a unfair critique for some of my favorite singer songwriters.
example springsteen- is he supposed to be the working class guy he sings about? no way in my book, if i made millions of dollars i wouldnt want to work at the plant or have some job working construction..
is he a hyprocrite, no . is he a hero. no also.
he is just a great interperter of others lives.

Springsteen can be very sincere about singing about the working class without being an authentic member of that class. Don't know if he is or not, but he can be.

Overly sentimental sincerity will lose out to clever wit every time, but overly ironic wit can get insufferably smug pretty fast over the smallest thing or nothing at all.

In my own life I'd probably have more fun overall if I opted for wit more often, but I choose sincerity every time. Call it a character flaw.

"It's not the job of the artist to give a fuck, only to give." - Stew

In music, there's such a thing as entertainment for entertainment's sake. For better or worse. Sincerity need not be important in theatricality either, if it's for its own sake.

This aside, it's near impossible as an end-listener to ascertain the artist's original intentions. The trite can reek of sincerity in the end product.



Post Edited (09-30-07 15:49)

sincerity is overrated

Jim Green wrote a line that's stuck with me over the years. Referring to The Hunter, he says that Blondie is "bereft of things to say, or ways to say nothing with style or grace." That line offers a clue to great rock & roll ... and to how much of a role sincerity really plays in it.

Oasis has made some of my favorite rock & roll of the past 15 years or so. Who the heck would tag the Gallagher brothers as "sincere" ... or chastise them for being insincere? (Especially when they both have so many other characteristics that they might be criticized for.) The proof is in the music.

Excellent points, all.

I come back to someone like Devin Davis, who recorded stuff on his off-hours as an engineer at a studio in Chicago (LONELY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD UNITE!). I can overlook many of his artistic and lyrical shortcomings in light of how important it obviously was to him (note "to him") to record it.

Now, Springsteen has been cited here, and if loving Sprinsteen is wrong, I don't wanna be right, so my bona fides may be in question.

Addendum: There's a teeny part of me that believes Andrew WK is sincere, too.



Post Edited (10-06-07 00:07)

> There's a teeny part of me that believes Andrew WK is sincere, too.

How could he not be? He has so little to say that faking it would be more effort than it'd be worth.

Delvin wrote:

> > There's a teeny part of me that believes Andrew WK is
> sincere, too.
>


the to live and shave in la drummer? yeah, i suspect so, too...