INTEGRITY
In those days the words “artistic integrity” did not evoke a sneer, as they might now—if not a stare of blank incomprehension. Sometimes I’ll catch myself describing that quality, or its lack, to explain why I don’t admire a certain performer, and realize I might as well be talking to a wall. “Catch myself,” because I should know better by now. Some people—a lot of people—simply don’t get the distinction, even if they believe they love music. Many others just don’t care
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It’s not something I’m particularly bitter about, because professionally I have managed to prosper despite waging that battle. So I crow not as a victim but a victor, in spite of all I continue to rail against. But in the face of public opinion (if that’s not another giant oxymoron), it carries no weight that you might have devoted your life to making music as well and as honestly as you can, and your experience empowers you to identify all of the “tricks” employed by “pop artists” (almost always a giant oxymoron) to attract the casual listener—simple beat, sentimental or “party time” lyrics, banal chord combinations, trendy production gimmicks, and lots of repetition. You learn that if you find yourself talking to somebody who admires a certain musical “stylist,” one you know to be a carefully packaged commodity, you don’t bother to explain how that music had been specifically designed and manufactured with that sole aim in mind: to be “liked.”
You might hear, “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
That’s a hard question to answer—why does integrity matter? One analogue that occurs to me is that I don’t think anyone would admire a person like that, who did and said whatever was necessary just to be liked. Such a person couldn’t possibly operate that way with any integrity, and even if we didn’t see that transparency at first, eventually we would.
So much popular music—almost all of it—is specifically designed not to say anything, or mean anything; not to carry any heartfelt message through passionate playing and singing, but simply to be liked.
Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that, for those who do indeed “like” it, but it’s the fraud that offends me. The pretend “rebels” who dance on the strings of sleazy producers; the shallow divas who simply do what they’re told, sing the notes and words put in front of them, and pretend they mean it.
And it’s not just music, and it’s not just the creators: it’s the audience. Readers of formulaic novels don’t care that those books have been shaped, paragraph by paragraph, to appeal to a particular reader, and thus they—the readers—are nothing more or less than the “lowest common denominator.” People who line up for blockbuster movies merely trust that their shallower desires will be properly catered to—mild titillation and a few fights and car chases. TV viewers don’t care that they are being “marketed to”—pandered to, not forgetting that the definition of “pander” is “pimp”—not only in the commercials, but in the cheap, cynical content.
The Roman satirist Juvenal described the social decline of his people with a memorable phrase, “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.”
Apparently burgers and “American Idol” have the same effect.
“Give the people what they want” is enough for some, even the summit of their aspirations, but others would like to do better than that.
- neil peart
