What exactly does it mean to hurl the criticism “corporate” at something you don’t like: a particular coffee shop, or movie, or radio station? Beyond the obvious implications–that corporate versions cater to mainstream tastes, are one in a chain of clones, are about money rather than the good or service being offered–there’s a more fundamental accusation at hand. When something is labeled “corporate,” the real criticism is that it lacks authenticity. For example, those suspect of corporate culture would argue that Noah’s Bagels is a far cry from a Jewish bagel shop in Brooklyn circa 1940.
The loudest authenticity curmudgeons are those who turn their ire on corporate rock, like, say, “(Insert Band Name Here) is the corporate version of (Insert Authentic Band Name Here).” The inauthentic band, the critic urges, exists as an outlandish fraud that must be exposed for corrupting the meaning of rock music as defined by legitimate rock bands.
There’s a huge problem with this criticism. Authenticity is subjective. Case in point: The person who thinks Nirvana was the height of authentic rock and therefore disdains any post-grunge band for being phony is obviously someone who had an important moment with Nirvana; a moment along the lines of that day in their teenage bedroom listening to Nevermind when they were jarred into consciousness about the homogenous teen culture surrounding them.
Unfortunately, this authentic moment is more about the authenticity of being a teenager than about the authenticity of the music itself. Consider: For every Nirvana true believer, there’s an older person who will lecture on mid-’80s indie rock (Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, the Minutemen); and for every Hüsker Dü fanatic there’s an older person who will wax eloquent about the mid-’70s underground: Television, the Dead Boys, Richard Hell. It goes on. For every aging punk who holds the mid-’70s dear, there’s the disdainful Lester Bangs crowd who moon over rock’s “real” heyday: Blue Cheer, Stooges, Velvets, Seeds.
It’s an endless cycle that ultimately leads into conversations about whites ripping off blacks. Black music, ridiculously, becomes the only authentic music. Absurdly, 1930s Delta blues man Robert Johnson becomes the only legitimate rock star. Given this trajectory, where white music is inherently inauthentic, the quest for authenticity becomes highly stupid. First of all, dare I say it, whites do actually have soul. Second, the impossible litmus test of authenticity is more crushing than any cookie-cutter corporate arbiter turns out to be. While the authenticity test would surely outlaw Beck on grounds of blackface minstrelsy, the corporate world sent him our way. The final word is left to the individual, and the moment.
More importantly, if a problem with corporations is that they sap things of their authenticity, yet authenticity is subjective, I’d argue that corporations have very little power to establish authenticity at all.
So, what of today’s corporate deity Britney Spears, who makes Madonna, the most purposefully inauthentic act of all time, seem authentic? Well, if Britney Spears excites young girls, then so be it; Britney is an authentic teenage moment in 2002–corporate product or not. (In fact, it may be impossible for an authentic teenage moment in 2002 not to be a corporate product, but that’s a larger discussion.) This new line of thinking actually disarms corporate power. Authenticity comes from the moment you’re living in, not from the product you’re buying. Long live Britney.
Certainly, you think I’m being flip. Wrong. To test my theory, I bought Britney’s first CD, Baby One More Time (Jive Records). You know, the one from 1999, before she got all corporate? It’s a groovy album. She does a remarkable cover of Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On,” she religiously croons more than a few elegant ballads, and she delivers a few knockout pop songs. Ten years from now, the same way a Cha Cha Lounge hipster reminisces about listening to Slayer as a teen, a twentysomething woman should feel no shame telling tales of her teen years and its Britney Spears soundtrack.
