"Artificial" Sweetener

Eric Lebofsky - Untitled (2004)

Children and Corpse Playing in the Streets - Fucked Up Beautiful (mp3): On first listen, the unexpected laughter sweetens, (over) sweetens, (carmelizes on your molars) sweetens this track. But listen again. This time imagine that Marit and Inga-Lill have placed laughter in those exact places in the sheet music to create cuteness. Imagine them glancing up at each other, giggling on cue, and then returning to the lyrics. Fucked up beautiful isn't usually planned, it's a spontaneous genre.

But why? Movies carefully orchestrate emotions of characters, actors cry and laugh on cue to crescendo with the timber of the story. I've never seen sheet music for metal bands (it it exists), but I doubt there is notation to scream the verses. But isn't that pretty important to the sound? Does planning for emotion in music "cheapen" the authenticity of the art? Why is most music expected to be documentary, autobiography, and not allowed to be pure fiction? I suppose this is why we call our musicians "artists" and not "actors". But what if a "musician" hired actors to perform a piece, with their emotions carefully laid out in the notation? Would it be "forced"? The live performance of music certainly contains much acting, the audience just prefers to pretend every performance is authentic. Maybe this is the essence of the "fake" Andrew W.K. rumors and interactive performance art. We tend to want fucked up beautiful to stay a spontaneous genre.