When we can't stop watching an artist explain their own work online, is "authorial intent" actually gaining power instead of losing it?
Roland Barthe's "Death of an Author" argued that meaning comes from readers, not from the author's stated intentions. I'm working on this ideo for a digital literary course, and I keep running into a similarity that is specific to music right now. Artists constantly narrate their own work with things such as liner note threads, "making of" videos/films, and Genius annotations/interviews that walk through a track-by-track meaning. That seems like the opposite of the author disappearing. If anything, audiences increasingly seem to want the artist's own meaning before they will commit to an interpretation. Like the artists stated meaning becomes the "correct" one that fan interpretations get measured against, rather than one interpretation among many. So I'm curious as to what you all think. Does an artist explaining their intent actually shut down alternative interpretations, or does it just become more raw material for interpretation? And is there a difference between an artist explaining intent after release of music or shaping the narritive before a release or music?