Outsiders Escaping Postmodern Irony: Exploring the ‘New Sincerity’ trend within music
The New Sincerity is a trend that has manifested in literature, music, poetry, philosophy and more for decades. Although there are many different facets to it, with the parameters changing slightly with each form, the term generally describes creative works that build upon and break away from the postmodern concepts of irony and cynicism. A school of thought that first emerged in the mid-1980s, much of its substance and popularity is thanks to the bandana-sporting author David Foster Wallace.
The concept is quite an extensive one. Wallace added much credence to the idea with his books and essays, urging society to move past irony and metafiction and explore post-postmodernism. In E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction, the essay published in 1993, Wallace argued that television has an unduly ironic influence on fiction. Thus, he implored authors to shun the shallow rebellion portrayed by TV. The sentiment outlined here can be used in a more expansive sense. He wrote: “I want to convince you that irony, poker-faced silence, and fear of ridicule are distinctive of those features of contemporary U.S. culture (of which cutting-edge fiction is a part) that enjoy any significant relation to the television whose weird, pretty hand has my generation by the throat. I’m going to argue that irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, and that, at the same time, they are agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture, and that, for aspiring fictionists, they pose terrifically vexing problems.”
Johnathan D. Fitzgerald’s 2012 article Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age’s Ethos, published in The Atlantic, provides an interesting definition of New Sincerity. He argues against a previous piece in the same publication that claimed that New Sincerity had been eradicated by 21st-century irony. In doing so, he described how it might have linked up with irony to create a new way of thinking for the modern age. This description is fitting, as it can be used to encompass many of our favourite features from popular culture, ranging from the Yo La Tengo album And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out to the 2022 movie Aftersun.
Fitzgerald referenced a comment from Jesse Thorn, the host of the podcast Bullseye, an early promoter of New Sincerity. Thorn’s appraisal explained: “Irony and sincerity combined like Voltron, to form a new movement of astonishing power”. Therefore, if we were to believe this definition, irony isn’t dead in the face of the New Sincerity, but rather a powerful rhetorical tool that’s become a part of it. Using this definition, it’s easy to approach the trend within music and understand how it captured audiences and has remained omnipresent.
In the beginning, ‘New Sincerity’ became an umbrella term to categorise a loose collection of alternative rock acts based in Austin, Texas, circa 1985 to 1990. These groups were considered a reaction to the overly ironic and cynical outlook of the day’s prominent musical movements, such as punk and new wave. Look no further than Dead Kennedys and Devo for examples of this ironic outlook. Reportedly, the use of the term ‘New Sincerity’ to describe the bands began with an off-handed comment by Austin author Jesse Sublett to his friend, the local music journalist Margaret Moser. According to the author Barry Shank, Sublett professed: “All those new sincerity bands, they’re crap”.
However, writing on his website, Sublett states that he was misquoted. He asserts that he actually told Moser: “It’s all new sincerity to me … It’s not my cup of tea”. Regardless of the circumstance, Moser started using the term in her work, with it becoming a catchphrase of the bands. Notably, the most successful of the New Sincerity bands was The Reivers, who released four mildly acclaimed albums between 1985 and 1991. Other acts that gained plaudits in the local area were True Believers – led by Alejandro Escovedo and John Dee Graham – Wild Seeds, Doctors Mob, and Glass Eye.
As the New Sincerity musical movement started within the Austin area, there is no one more significant to the gospel’s journey than the ultimate outsider musician – then-McDonald’s worker – Daniel Johnston. A storied and acclaimed songwriter, Johnston was propelled to fame when Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain wore the T-shirt of the Hi, How Are You tape in the early 1990s.
Demonstrating the extent of his sincerity, Johnston penned lyrics such as, “And I saw you at the funeral, you were standing there like a temple/ I said, ‘Hi, how are you? Hello’/ And I pulled up a casket and crawled in“. In addition to this, he also popularised the cartoon frog ‘Jeremiah the Innocent’. The character unironically asks people, “Hi, how are you?”, in a childish way that harks back to William Blake’s monumental Songs of Innocence. Duly, a wealth of points present the late musician as the ultimate New Sincerity musician.
Johnston and the New Sincerity acts were so impactful that they were featured in a 1985 episode of MTV’s The Cutting Edge. This widely forgotten moment spread the gospel of the musical movement to the rest of Generation X and, by proxy, to subsequent generations, from Millennials to Gen Alpha. His wholesome charm was endearing, and he seemed to be in the arts for the love of it as opposed to poking fun. As David Bowie commented: “Daniel Johnston reminds me of aspects that made me love art in the first place”. Sometimes it takes an individual unattached to the zeitgeist to create a new one.
Unsurprisingly, Kurt Cobain was another luminary attracted to New Sincerity. Although he loved irony, Cobain’s works were sincere, with the authenticity of his lyrics appealing to fans from all different walks of life. Three examples instantly spring to mind. The first is the childhood trauma recalled in ‘Sliver’. The second is the internal darkness conveyed in the mythic ‘Something in the Way’. Third, and most importantly, is the personal and creative finale, ‘All Apologies’ (“What else should I be? / All apologies”). This kind of genuine sentiment opened music up to its future, with the New Sincerity gradually permeating popular culture.
After the early 1990s, honesty became acceptable in art and life. If it wasn’t for this period, it’s likely that My Chemical Romance’s 2004 emo classic ‘I’m Not Okay’ would not have come to fruition, despite how ironic this point might be given that many dubbed it as facile. However, it hinted at the growing trend and artists finally offering up honest accounts driven by emotional resonance rather than wry smiles.
