Why does Hank Williams demand respect from all artists while Tim McGraw does not? Is it only Hank’s songwriting or vocal talent, or is it something more that commands us to acknowledge the legendary status of ole Hank while McGraw is a pop culture icon who hangs out with Nelly?

Talent aside, the brilliance of Hank Williams’ music is largely a result of Hank’s perceived authenticity. Hank Williams’ music does not represent a stylized commodity which attempts to utilize a man’s talents to sell a genre to masses. It is real country music, coming out of the mouth and guitar of a man who lived the life he sang of. Hank Williams did not have music videos and cocaine; he had horses and liquor, and he died at a young age because he tragically lived the life he wrote and sang of. I do not mean to exploit Hank Williams’ personal shortcomings for a two-dimensional treatise on popular culture; I’ve never met him, and I don’t have any definitive knowledge of what he was like. But I do know that he died at a young age because of his lifestyle and that those who knew him described as a true embodiment of his music.

Who in the world of popular music is authentic anymore? And who can really define authenticity in our world of media imagery and indeterminism?

I jest that Justin Timberlake is the quintessential talented-yet-unauthentic musical artist. Justified really does sound like a Michael Jackson album, but it is not a Michael Jackson album. Less obvious (and more respectable) examples of the talented-and-unauthentic are singers like Ryan Adams: the prolific cross-genre songwriters whose accents and vernaculars change as often as their stylistic shout-outs do. Contrary to oft-held belief, Ryan Adams is no copycat (unless analysis goes no further than most of his Gold album); his music typically brings distinctly Adamsesque elements into its various styles, such as self-centered melodrama or waning croons. Observe the uniqueness of the heartfelt Love Is Hell EPs, which present a brand of melancholy all Adams’ own and proved popular enough to be made into a full-length album in 2004. Nevertheless, the authenticity of a pure singer like Hank Williams is completely missing from Ryan Adams’ work. A listen to Rock N Roll just after a listen to Heartbreaker contrasts a Kentucky rambler and a New York City hipster. Who is Ryan Adams? At what point in any given recording can authenticity be noted? It is impossible to tell.