Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century.

Simon Reynolds. 2016.

...says (Simon) Napier-Bell. ‘Real images come from real, unusual people.’ On the face of it, this is a curious definition of pop-star authenticity: the ‘true’ fake is in control of the masks he or she wears. But it fits figures like Bolan and his competitive friend Bowie. Both invented a series of personae before finding one that clicked with the public. (Reynolds p. 30)

The manufactured versus the self-manufactured is the divide running through pop history according to Reynolds.

What springs to my mind is how truth (fact) is obtained via untruth (fiction).

This is where art enters in and when the tool enabling the process becomes more than just a tool.