"Real Music" is a Myth.

What about authors who write about things they'vre no first hand links with. Are you willing to lose Alice in Wonderland, The Matrix, Star Wars, ET, The Ilyiad, Harry Potter...

face on a bearded neck

Now I have a new pet name for Handsome Jedi Knight!

(Now to set about proving that my enjoyment of Manitoba is more real than your enjoyment of Busted...)

That's just what the puppet masters want you to think.

ribbit. ribbit. all a children's story, innit, so fuck the plot. ribbit.

they can also bring things from their own background into it, and create something far more original. take bob dylan. robert zimmerman was from a comfortable jewish background. by the time of his early 20s, he was bob dylan, and was singing like he was right out of some deserted western ghost town or a dustbowl, with a twang and with passion that you could feel. however he brought a lot of originality to the table alongside this, and was far more than a traditional folk singer. he may have used folk music, and folk imagery to convey his messages, but his message, and way of expressing it, had a literary intelligence to it, and his performance was significantly enhanced by the strength of the material. perhaps his love for early rock and roll , little richard, buddy holly etc (which he might not have experienced if he'd lived out in the sticks) helped influence a lot of his own musical innovation (you gotta admit, no one can really sound quite like bob dylan). im not sure any of this would have been possible without his contrasting upbringing (the middle class emphasis on eduction etc).

similar arguments can be made for a wide variety of other artists. captain beefheart, will oldham, john fahey (who's influences were all over the place, like indian classical etc) and others have all been influenced by music from backgrounds that they werent necessarily born into or even experienced directly, and have bought a hell of a lot more originality to music than a lot of artists that are just born into a certain musical background, experienced it all their lives, and made music almost exactly like it (this is essentially what is crap about most of shit that comes out of the commercial country scene these days, and is exactly whats shit about so many average indie pop acts.) even if you hate the artists ive mentioned, i hope you recognise they're pretty distinctive, and that their work has passion, and therefore the accusation of "fake" doesnt stick. the feelings the music inspires are as real as it gets, for me anyway

in other words, you create your own authenticity, its not something you get from your background

If this was an SAT question, the answer would be "False".

A-Baking
B-Vomiting
C-Starving
D-Food Science

< /pedant >

Discounting other kinds of music for not being Real or Authentic is like stopping someone in the middle of a ghost story to say, "Wait, is this true? Did it happen to you? Recently? No? Then I don't care." It's retarded.

Arguing that you'd rather people refer to a song's subject matter as "authentic" instead of calling it "real music" because "imaginary music can't exist unless it's a hallucination" is the least authentic musical pursuit i can imagine.

because "imaginary music can't exist unless it's a hallucination" is the least authentic musical pursuit i can imagine.
the comment about "imaginary music == hallucinations" is only offered as a retort to any nitwit who loves talking about how his fave is "real music". Such as this:
Nitwit: I don't like (x)...I prefer Real Music...and what you like isn't real music! Blah Blah Blah!
You: So...my faves are imaginary? Did I hallucinate them?

Authentic == It Exists and openly and honestly espouses an (old-fashioned?|rockist?) ideology
Real == It Exists.
Inauthentic == It Exists but only pretends (usually clumsily) to have an ideological stance.
Imaginary == It does not Exist.

Does "Keep it Real" annoy you just as much, for the same reason?
Yes, but for a different reason. Nowadays, "Keep it Real" is an empty buzzphrase. Its the rapper equivalent of a Suit saying "we're leveraging our synergies through our proactive, forward facing paradigm."; All the rappers say it, But I suspect they don't mean the same thing by it.