Musicians strive to "keep it real"; listeners condemn "fakes"; ... but does great music really need to be authentic? Did Elvis sing from the heart, or was he just acting? Were the Sex Pistols more real than disco? Why do so many musicians base their approach on being authentic, and why do music buffs fall for it every time? By investigating this obsession in the last century through the stories of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Jimmie Rodgers, Donna Summer, Leadbelly, Neil Young, Moby, and others, Faking It rethinks what makes popular music work. Along the way, the authors discuss the segregation of music in the South, investigate the predominance of self-absorption in modern pop, reassess the rebellious ridiculousness of rockabilly and disco, and delineate how the quest for authenticity has not only made some music great and some music terrible but also shaped in a fundamental way the development of popular music in our time.

--

In the last fifty years, the quest for authenticity, for the 'real', has become a dominant factor in musical taste - whether it be the folklorist's search for forgotten bluesmen, the rock critic's elevation of raw power over sophistication, or the importance of bullet wounds to the careers of hip-hop artists such as 50 Cent. Faking It explodes the myth of what it means to be 'real' and 'fake' in pop music. From 30s blues singer Leadbelly to Moby's use of his singing over half a century later, the appropriation of black music by a predominantly white musical fanbase, Pop Idol, the fact that no one in Cuba listens to Buena Vista Social Club to Kurt Cobain's suicide note and the fear it expressed of 'faking it'.