Pop music has lost its nerve

A video clip showing Steve Winwood, the singer, guitarist and keyboard player, has been causing some consternation in recent weeks. He is singing the classic Blind Faith song, “Can’t Find My Way Home”, solo, with nothing to accompany him but an acoustic guitar and a crackling fire. Check it out on YouTube: it is a lovely rendition, heartfelt and immaculately played. But that is precisely where the problem starts.

The playing is just a little too polished for some people. An impassioned debate instantly took off on selected internet sites when the clip appeared. This could not possibly be a live performance, said the sceptics: study the fingering, note the positions of the microphones. It all sounds too good. It is a scam.

On the Lefsetz Letter website, run by the estimable music business blogger Bob Lefsetz, who brought the clip to readers’ attention for Winwood’s excellent playing, opinions were divided. Here is a typically forensic example, in the guitarist’s defence: “Watch the lead in to the two-minute mark. You’ll notice him flubbing the note, hitting an Eb fretted on the lowest/top string as opposed to the Bb note on the string below that he was aiming for.”

All around the world, budding guitarists, old hippies and plain music-lovers joined in the debate, subjecting the short film to Zapruder-levels of analysis. Defenders pointed to a snap from the crackling fire to support the clip’s veracity; sceptics noted that it is not difficult to overdub a snap from a crackling fire. Peter Frampton, Paul Brady and Steve Lukather, accomplished axemen all, with years of experience, spoke in support of their colleague. But still the disbelievers maintained that Winwood’s seemingly effortless picking could not have produced such accomplished results.

And at this point a secondary debate began to take off: is the world of popular music in such a state of degeneration that it is impossible to take any display of instrumental virtuosity at face value? Are we so stifled by overdubs, re-edits and lip-syncs that we trust no one? Winwood, a former Wunderkind in his days with the Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s, belongs to that generation of rock musicians who learnt their craft with obsessive care over detail. Had even he succumbed to the dark arts of the remix?

. . .

This debate would not have occurred in the worlds of classical or jazz music, where integrity and virtuosity are taken for granted. Musicians spend years learning how to play, and how to avoid playing bum notes in live performance. They have not been undermined by studio trickery and hype. They do not arouse suspicion. Falsification is not an issue. They can play.

It’s different in pop. I saw a global superstar on the London branch of her world tour some years ago – I cannot name her for these matters have been known to have litigious consequences – and was blown away by the accuracy of her singing. Except that I soon realised that she was managing to accomplish quite demanding dance routines without drawing breath on her microphone. I felt let down. We used to laugh at this on Top of the Pops. Now we were expected to applaud.

Back to Steve Winwood: finally, as we were all hoping, he responded in person to the Lefsetz Letter. He declared himself “amused and flattered” by the controversy. Cleverly, he spoke in support of multi-track, multi-take overdubbing techniques, a subject on which he had become expert during the production of his acclaimed Arc of a Diver album, 30 years old this month.

The arts of the studio are an integral part of pop’s tradition, and nothing to be ashamed of.

But in this particular case, he said, what you saw was what you got: a great old song, recorded and filmed in one take, with two microphones and a crackling fire. I am sure I was not alone in feeling a little embarrassed to have doubted him. Our minds are fogged by mendacious marketing and the championing of mediocrity. Saturday night reality contests do nothing but make us doubt what is real.

Popular music has lost its nerve. It needs to find its own way home.

peter.aspden@ft.com

More columns at www.ft.com/aspden