Authenticity

Theorizing Authenticity

Realist approaches to the study of authenticity in music often focus on how certain sounds and groups of people are seen to reflect the true essence of a musical genre. Often intertwined in these essentialist understandings of authentic music are rigidly defined associations between music and various forms of social difference (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.). For example, a well-documented essentialist argument within music journalism is that authentic rock music is produced by singer/songwriters who are usually men, whereas inauthentic “pop” music is produced by women performers who do not write or produce their music. The centrality of realist approaches is that authentic music arises out of direct firsthand experience and reflects the essence of one's true cultural identity. Within this framework, authentic music is not commercial. In general, there is a distinction made between authentic culture on the one hand, and commercial culture on the other, with the former being valorized and the latter being demonized. Authentic music is music that has not been commodified and/or is produced by marginalized subcultures outside the musical mainstream.

Increasingly, there has been a shift toward constructionist understandings of authentic music. Social constructionist approaches focus on how authentic music is created through the social processes of “authenticity work” (people actively creating authenticity through authenticity claims) and authentication (people actively accepting or rejecting authenticity claims). People are actively involved in creating, classifying, and consuming what they consider to be authentic music. According to Richard Peterson, authenticity is “a claim that is made by or for someone, thing, or performance and either accepted or rejected by relevant others.”

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