We—you, me, and everyone else—are bifurcated subjects: the subject that speaks and the subject that is spoken of, which creates a largely unknowable breach in the Self that we are all constantly attempting to define, whether we are conscious of that search or not; this breach is the unconscious, the gray fuzzy center of what we are at our core. I believe that musicians, and artists in general, attempt to rectify, to understand this gap through their chosen medium of expression: their art form. This is an extremely personal journey and people are drawn to the type of music that embodies the journey that is most like their own. This attraction is based on many factors that, I believe, stem from a certain element of alienation that is endemic of and intrinsic to contemporary culture in particular, and can partially be traced to the steaming pile of horse shit that we call the media. As like people gravitate towards like journeys, they begin to congregate, to coalesce and this is the point at which a “scene” begins to develop. To put this in the terminology preferred by Catherine Belsey, music interpellates people as they attempt to construct themselves into cohesive units, which is a variegated system of communication (both within and outside of the barriers of language) that can be diagramed as follows:

                        TRADITION – - – ARTIST- – - – MUSIC – - – - AUDIENCE.

Which is to say, an artist draws upon his/her experiences and the fundamental historicized legacies that comprise them, distills them into a song as a form of catharsis, then shares that cathartic creation with his/her audience who in turn reap the benefits of their own catharsis by identifying with that journey and being surrounded by people who are reaping the same benefits.

At a point, the authenticity of this relationship between the artist(s) and the audience is called into question. Once a band is hyped, signed to a major label, and commodified, something is lost; people begin to follow the artist(s) based not upon a genuine connection with their journey, but rather for the “coolness” factor of the associated scene. This is, consequently, the death of any meaningful extraction: it has been co-opted by popular culture and its original intention has been bastardized. Video killed the radio star. The precise location of this bastardization is difficult to pin point and, therefore, is entirely subjective. Personally, once Middle America (the red states) has picked up on an indie rock artist I tend to lose faith in its authenticity, but that’s because I’m an indie music snob.