Pop music requires the
age-old notion of masking. People have assumed musical identities to sell shows
throughout history. But masking isn’t just for the sake of the performer. The
audience too need to know that what they project their loves, lusts, hatreds
and fears upon isn’t too real. The mask signifies that the performance is
indeed an act and not a documentary. Everyone involved in this interplay has to
be aware of the mask, conscious of the fact that pop music is made for
television, for radio, for the perpetual playing to the masses. Recently this
has led to a problematic paradox. Increasingly music has just become ‘pop’ –
popular characters basically offering the same types of music under different
guises – and the music that grounded these masks in authenticity and reality
have been put aside. The paradox is that whilst the greatest character masks
still tap into a reality the music used to provide, it is never desirable to
stray too far from pop world conventions.
People want to
identify with real music but are uncomfortable when the performers become too
real. So on the one hand no one wants real pop stars that live in the everyday
world, but on the other hand we want to believe that what they sing about and
perform is still relevant to us, the average listener. Of course the songs that
speak best happen to be the ones that come from a real place and person. It is
the dilemma the lead character from the cult classic film Videodrome faces. In
a sci-fi world dominated by soft porn and TV violence, there’s something about Videodrome
that separates it from the rest. The problem is that this something happens to
be the fact that Videodrome is real. He realises the distinction that where
many people will enjoy watching pornography, few want to watch snuff.
Nowhere is the mask
more sacred than in America, where Disneyworld staff rooms are for ‘Cast Members
Only’ and radio listeners mistake HG Wells for the news. Recently America has
been churning out better pop stars because they can actually believe in the
mask modern pop culture demands. Nowhere is this seen more than in the MTV VMA
ceremonies. In 2009 Kanye West infamously wrecked Taylor Swift’s award speech.
By 2010 this had become the material for Taylor Swift’s performance at the very
same award ceremony the next year. What had been a real event in 2009 had
become part of the character masks by 2010. Taylor Swift becomes the mature model of forgiveness when
faced with adversity:
While Kanye languishes
in his boyish arrogance and the burden of his obvious genius, “lets have a
toast for the assholes”:
And remarkably all was
forgiven despite none of these events ever leaving the surreal world of the
music award ceremony, something Taylor Swift even alludes to at the beginning
of her performance. Pop will eat itself and enjoy it too. The success of the performances
lay in their ability to offer some real feeling within the comforts of the MTV
world, unthreatening, safe – unreal. The script couldn’t have been written any
better.
However, for one
person this system has gone horribly wrong. Her character is Lana Del Rey. A
name formed from a Golden Age Hollywood actress and a Brazilian car. She
released a video for her song "Videogames", which brought her to the pop arena
quicker than perhaps any other internet meme, and people don’t know what to do
with her. What they have done is drag her through a never-ending series of
interrogations about her authenticity. What separates Lana Del Rey from the plethora of female artists is that
rather than being too fake, she isn’t fake enough. The music she has become famous
by is very good, "Videogames" has topped numerous songs of the year polls, but
people are more interested in whether she used to be called Lizzy Grant and whether
her dad is rich. It’s as if she created a character for genuine
musical/aesthetic reasons that has now found its self embroiled in a world
where music is irrelevant - pop.
When Katy Perry
released “I Kissed A Girl”, she became a huge hit, but no one questioned the
authenticity of her song. Maybe its because the nature of the song and her
character are so dramatically overblown that it put everyone at ease that
things weren’t getting threateningly real. Lana Del Rey produced a song that
really hit the public consciousness, because the public are desperate for
genuine songs, and people have become obsessed with the authenticity of the
character. The charge against her is that Lana Del Rey isn’t real enough. The truth is Lana Del Rey isn’t fake
enough. Unlike successful pop artists she doesn’t believe in her own mask.
After the reaction of her Saturday Night Live performance she has
cancelled her world tour[1].
She has even stated that there might not even be another album because she has
said everything she needs to say[2]. These aren’t the actions of a
pop star, though of course all this could still yet prove to be a publicity
masterstroke.
Right now the success
of Pop comes from knowingly teasing the audience into a character relationship.
We put our unreal expectations on them and they live up to it. It takes on the
role of voyeurism. Everyone feels plugged into the music, but really we are all
just looking through keyholes as pop seduces us. Our experience becomes as deep
as the eyes that can sense it, and it stops anyone seeing the bigger picture. There
is a huge value on the authentic feeling because it is so fleeting in our age.
Perhaps this is why popular music gets away with the most incredible
superficiality. Perhaps this is why Lana Del Rey has been hounded so
relentlessly. In any case what Lana Del Rey has shown is that the pop world
isn’t like a videogame, it’s more like videodrome.
No comments:
Post a Comment