Um, Excuse Me? I Actually Know the Artist, and He Thinks What You're Doing Is Garbage

Does knowing the artist behind a particular piece of music make it more satisfying to listen to? I tend to think yes, probably because my experiences along those lines have almost always been positive. For instance, the Whigs-esque dissolute romantic tone of The Beauvilles' music would probably leave me questioning whether it was an honest lifestyle reflection or merely a Rock Debauch pose struck to sell attitude if I didn't know and like songwriter/frontman Shawn Kyle.

You're either the real deal or as totally committed to the pretension as to make no difference when you spend the night sleeping on a tiny loveseat, try to deal with your hangover by reading Yeats, then pass up drinking water, eating food and nursing your bad head because you totally agree that you should be driven home before the NFL playoffs start because no one should miss game time. After bearing witness to that, any song about the city imploding and/or getting shot over a broken heart instantly seems less histrionic and far more sincere. After all, even if the song's evocation of a quintessentially male mindset were a lie, the lie itself is one honestly attended to even outside the song's boundaries.