Authenticity matters in music and other parts of life

I'm looking down the barrel of a five-hour drive, but I'm armed with the new CD "Bitter Suite Swan Song" from the pop band Poppermost. Never heard of Poppermost? Well then, give yourself a smack on the forehead and come with me.

Poppermost is the songwriting duo Alex Oliver and Roy Al Rendahl. I have followed and enjoyed their career for a few years, but "Bitter Suite" is like nothing they have ever done. I listen to it three times during my five-hour drive, and I keep shaking my head and smiling. Melody. Relentless melody that just takes you apart. Vocal harmony to send shivers down your back. Lyrics that combine a disarming innocence with ruthless candor.

My favorite track is "Down," a song that, without irony, lets us remember the way love draws us like a moth to the flame, illuminating everything, then tearing us limb from limb: "Love can be as trivial just like a matchbox / Left beside somebody's birthday cake / And love can pierce the soul just like an arrow / If it feels at odds with your mistakes."

I opened my e-mail this morning to find yet another story about Britney Spears. This time she has been busted lip syncing. The fans boo. Actually, the only thing that surprises me about the story is there remains any appreciable number of "music fans" in America who understand such things ought to be booed.

Unfortunately for her, Britney has become, for me, an icon of sorts, and not the sort of icon you'd want to be. She represents for me all that is false and empty about the modern music industry. She's not a musician. She's not a writer. Her singing voice, reasonably ordinary to begin with, is poured through multiple filters and compressors. Maybe it's a person. But maybe it's an android escaped from a Stanley Kubrick film.

Britney herself brought two special gifts to the table to place before the gods of entertainment whimsy in America. She can dance. Oh my, she can dance. The bulk of her training as a child was in gymnastics and dance. And she has a compelling navel.

Mostly I'm just sad for her.

I'm going on record right now. You'll never see "Britney Unplugged" on VH1, and, 50 years from now, nostalgic, aging music fans will not be buying boxed set anthologies of Britney Spears. Never gonna happen.

Actually, I blame the soulless state of the modern music industry on The Monkees. That's where it all began. In the wake of the peerless Beatles, the British Invasion sent great pop act after great pop act to America. ABC and Colgem Records had a brainchild: Why wait for the emergence of a great American band when we can invent one? The casting call yielded Mike, Davey, Peter and Mickey. They hired stud songwriters such as Carole King and Neil Diamond. Ripped off the format from the movie "A Hard Day's Night." One audience of eager Monkee fans couldn't wait, so they booed the warm-up act off the stage. Guy named Jimi Hendrix.

If you were part of that audience, I urge you to go to rock 'n' roll confession and clear your conscience.

Used to be the fundamental job of a disc jockey was not to cue records and make happy talk, but to listen to listeners. They spent off-air time combing coffeehouses, bars, street corners, small theaters, international news services, always on the lookout for brilliance, talent, poetry. They looked for great songwriters.

Today, disc jockeys play what they are told to play. Guys in suits gather in boardrooms and decide what you and I are going to like next.

If Bob Dylan were 19 today, sitting on a bar stool in a Minnesota coffeehouse with his hardly above-average guitar skills, using that wretched-but-real voice of his to launch lyrics that don't happen but once every 100 years or so ...

... we'd never know. Because he'd never stand a chance.

The reason you've never heard of Poppermost is because it isn't famous. I only know the band because I hang out in bars at open mic nights and listen to gutsy, courageous, sometimes gifted, sometimes not-so-gifted nobodies (like me) play and sing original music in smoky rooms for an audience of mostly other songwriters.

I listen to Alex and Roy not just because I like them, but because they are real. Authentic. Loaded with talent. Their craft matters to them. They risk themselves.

I don't buy Britney Spears records for the same reason I will never buy an artificial Christmas tree.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.