Found this and thought was relatable to pone music as well

[Rainbowdutch]

http://djmag.com/node/36955

RANT 'N' RAVE: ACCEPT NO IMITATION Is nothing original anymore?

Issue: 518

Conventional words of wisdom; What an oxymoron.

There are so many nonsensical phrases that people love blindly bandying about. You know the ones, the proverbial drivel that people throw around in states of cod-philosophical self-approbation, even if it actually makes about as much sense as Joey Barton’s Twitter feed.

He wants to have his cake and eat it. Erm, what point is there in cake without eating it exactly? What else would you do with said cake?Worship it in quiet, Zen-like admiration? Throw it at the nearest moronic convert of this frankly baffling shuffling craze?

Actually, maybe that’s a saying that would make more sense. He likes to have his cake, take it out clubbing and throw it cleanly in the face of the nearest baboon-faced, fake tan-covered shuffler. There’s some wisdom I really can get down with. Or maybe it’s just the one redeeming feature of a Steve Aoki DJ set.

Anyway, my favourite oxymoronic nugget of accepted “wisdom” has to be “imitation is the highest form of flattery”. Brilliant. Copy someone else’s musical innovations, recreate their unique, carefully-sculpted sonic palette and they’re expected to conveniently forget this flagrant act of creative thievery, and instead bask in some sort of perverse glory while you get rich off the back of their hard work?

How did this become so? A more reliable saying would surely be: imitation is the lowest form of creativity. Right now, an overdose of imitation artistry (read that last word in the loosest possible sense) is sucking all the forward-thinking from today’s dance scene as people eat up a status quo of supposed innovations that have been coined countless times before.

Just take the interminable trend for rehashes of early '90s US house and garage. It’s a solid sound, sure. It was sort of cool the first time we heard a nostalgic bumpy house groove that felt like a lost MK DAT tape. Just like it was cool the first time round, when that sound was genuinely pioneering. In 1993. Or 20 whole frickin’ years ago, to put some perspective on things.

With this backward-thinking trick repeated over and over, it has become about as innovative (and formulaic) as an X Factor single. When will it stop? 'Gagnam Style' has more balls and artistic integrity than this rehashed tosh. I mean that. I really mean that. At least that track says something other than “we like these records from 20 years ago so much that we’ve tried to copy them pretty much beat for beat, organ stab for organ stab”. 'Gagnam Style' is anarchic and unique, two things that most dance music in 2013 certainly ain’t.

Plus it’s pretty hard to argue with the fact that EDM is much more fun when you chuck in a middle-aged Korean rapper who dances like he’s riding an imaginary pony. Anyway, in this bizarre post-modern vacuum of innovation, even the garage pastiches are getting ripped off and retooled. Anyone heard Ruben Mandolini’s 'Modular'? It unapologetically grabs the bassline from Mosca’s (admittedly brilliant) bumpy garage update 'Baxx' and shamelessly slaps it on a b-side blast of generic tech house tosh. What hope for creativity in this copycat free-for-all?

Then there’s the producers that are just endlessly copying themselves. Take the likes of MK and Todd Edwards. Legends? 100%. Talented?Most definitely. But wouldn’t it be great if their respective sounds had moved on a little more than a couple of proverbial pigeon steps from where they were 15 plus years ago?

Ed Rush is another one. In 1997, the neurofunk sound that he pioneered with Optical, Matrix et al was like nothing else around; it felt like having your head blown off by bilious, demonically futuristic bass and sucked down a seedy, sci-fi wormhole. Hearing it trotted out 16 years on is the very definition of diminishing returns. Argh… everything feels stuck on a loop.

But it’s probably not the artists that are to blame. They are just doing their thing. Making what feels right. Or what they feel people want to hear. Making what, dare we say it, sells. Nope, the real blame lies with you. Or us, to be specific. Just like any conventionally accepted norms, nothing will change until it is challenged. The more we continue to gush away uncontrollably every time some two-bit producer ‘successfully’ rehashes a sound that has gone before or trots out their tried, trusted and well-worn formula, the more it will get mistaken for genuine creativity.

So rise up and embrace the rule-breakers, sound punks, dreamers and forward-thinkers; those that are dancing to the beat of their own drum and forging new paths. Even if it occasionally means accepting that a Skrillex record has some actual artistic integrity to it. Well, at least they did until he started trying to sound like Burial. See what we’re dealing with here?Anyway…. innovation: accept no substitute. Or imitations.

[bartekko]

people are stuck thinking stuff like "the 80s were better" "new music sucks" etc. so they will imitate the old sound to get the feeling that they are bringing back the good stuff, forgetting that evolution never stops.

[Captain Ironhelm]

This is kind of silly. Sure there's a point at which something is a downright plagiarism. But there's no problem with building off of what has been discovered in the past. That's a big reason some of us bother with analytical music theory at some point in time. Look at most of the great composers of ever, and chances are they borrow off of structures that came before them.

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." ~ Igor Stravinsky

[Nine Volt]

I stopped reading once you said that Gangnam Style is anarchic and unique. Just no. Gangnam Style is a generic K-Pop dance tune with a weird dance, nothing more.

Also, you can't say that every modern house artist or every modern neurofunk artist is just rehashing what happened x number of years ago. I've produced both, and I sure as hell haven't heard any house or neurofunk from the 90s (or even early 2000s). This is just overgeneralizing and pretty blatantly accusing a large number of popular musicians from 'stealing' the styles of those that came before them.

[vladnuke]

Yeah, I've always been striving towards the original, trying to make something new. But just
because something is new doesn't make something good, and even though I've been adventurous in my genre splices, sometimes it gets a little too inoperable, just plain contrived. So yeah, it's all a balance.

[LoreRD]

Sorry, I disagree with him in just about every way. Trashing something just because it "isn't new" or "imitates the past" is incredibly narrow-minded. Unlike natural selection, there are reasons to go back to the past and see what's been done before, and yes, sometimes imitate them. Not just because of the musical theory, but also because it can still be relevant and can stand on its own merits.

There is a reason jazz composers and synthpop groups still exist. These kinds of genres are hugely influential and some people even prefer them over their "evolved" variants. People don't just listen to the past because it's nostalgic, they also listen to it because they like the music, regardless of how well-trod the path is. And if someone imitates an older musician, unless they're just straight-up plagiarising the song (which I obviously don't support), they bring SOMETHING different, even if it's unintentional. Regardless, these kinds of music have their own fans, and they're here to stay.

I have absolutely no problem with remixes or sampling (or as the author puts it, "lifting"), as long as proper credit is given. Sometimes there's a melody that you love so much that you would just LOVE to use that in one of their own tracks. Remixes can completely change the tone of a track, and sampled horn riffs/guitar riffs can be still awesome in their own way if used correctly (see Gotye).

Imitation is a form of flattery, because it shows that the original made an impact on the imitator. There was a REASON that the imitator chose to imitate that musician. If they become successful from imitation, then obviously they had made something that the masses liked, and deserve that success.

And in the long run, imitation can easily lead to new kinds of music, because most musicians who last any notable length of time, yet imitate (just tell me with a straight face that d.notive's Vicious Lies is void of any musical artistry), still make their own music. They still use their own musicality when creating their track, which will never be the exact same as the original. These musicians have then, in turn, their own imitators who make something even more different. Musicians who kept copying themselves died out or faded from relevance.

That is the main way music evolves. Ignoring that is ignoring any form of reality.

On the flipside, there are the pioneers who use new technology to make new kinds of music. These are however rare and is not the main way music evolves (although they usually have a bigger impact).

To me, it sounds like the author is so stuck in the mindset "everything sounds the same these days" that he/she can't even see that music always evolves, regardless of the originality of it all. The whole thing comes across as whiny and elitist. Music doesn't have to have to be "innovative" to contribute to music as a whole.

[itroitnyah]

I think that this journalist is taking a small problem and blowing it out of proportion. Yes, it gets boring and un-entertaining when an artist uses the same song structure over and over. Yes, it gets boring and un-entertaining when an artist uses the same melodies over and over. However, bringing yourself up by copying the structure of good songs in perfectly fine as a beginner. It gives you a chance to learn everything for yourself. Copying the melodies and chord progressions is sort of on the center line. It shows no creativity, but it can help with learning how to make melodies and progressions for yourself. A bit. I'd personally say don't do it, just learn how to make your own progressions and melodies for yourself.

I'd say he is blaming the wrong people for this. I say blame the record companies, they're the ones trying to mooch money off of producers, so they're telling the producers to make the songs "the correct" way in order for them to sell. I'm sure that not every record company does this, but a lot of the mainstream companies do, I'm sure about it.

[Icky]

I actually think Neurofunk is way more diverse than the author gives credit. Same with most genres. There are just a few genres out there that are pretty much creatively dead that seem to be very popular, swedish house and clubhouse come to mind.

Pony music has the same problem with dubstep, where a lot of artists try to sound like Alex S. non-horse dubstep is way more diverse, take a look at guys like Eptic, Excision, 501, Rusko, etc.

[Nine Volt]

Eptic blows, take a look at Cookie Monsta.

But that's beside the point. I agree with Lore, this guy is blowing a near-nonexistent issue far out of proportion. As with most genres there's huge amounts of diversity and experimentation going on.

[colortwelve]

I didn't really get anything about originality per se from this, more a railing against being overtly generic. Maybe that's because I'm biased against most generic stuff. I grew up listening to classic rock, the stuff we remember from ~40 years ago because it was so different. Almost every band on classic rock radio has a distinctive sound, but when you switch to something more modern, the DJs seem to lose their ability to distinguish what's good and what's passable. So you get a hard rock station following Tool with Breaking Benjamin.

That's the sort of thing I'm tired of, and that's why I've backed off on listening to as much dubstep as I used to - it's blown up so big that it's hard to pick out what's genuinely unique and what's a rehash, and so quickly that the rehash may come out within six months of the true innovation (I cite for you Skrillex and Zomboy, not so much for their releases' proximity but more for how similar they sound).

But it's nowhere near as much of an issue as this article is claiming. I've yet to hear anyone even try to do what Feed Me does. And even a fairly generic act like Swedish House Mafia may surprise everyone with a Greyhound. The thing to remember is this: twenty years in the future, when these acts are the ones being sampled rather than doing the sampling, it'll be much easier to identify which ones were genuinely unique. Because they'll be the ones we remember.

[ph00tbag]

I actually wondered if this guy had ever actually created music before when I started reading this article. Then, after I got through the first couple paragraphs, I wondered if, in addition to never having made music, he had never actually studied dance music history.

Let's start with my first point of wonderment. As someone who makes fairly original and unique music (I'm the only person I know who really makes groove-centric prog psy, but maybe I'm not really looking hard enough), I can say that none of my stuff is even as much as 50% original. Most of the stuff I create I'm "lifting" from other people's work, be it a sound, a thematic progression, a melody, or even outright sampling. It's in the recontextualization of these disparate things that I create something unique. Anyone who's ever created something new will balk at the assertion that they were not impacted in any way by their predecessors, because we all know for a fact that nothing we've created is 100% new. This guy's rejection of that concept makes me wonder how much he actually knows about creativity.

Then, we get into his questionable estimation of dance music history. The first house tunes were literally made like this: cut the first two beats of a funky pattern from some old disco tune, then rerecord this onto an eight track, then play back this eight track and fuck with the filter knob for eight minutes. That's not creativity by the author's narrow-minded definition. Later house tunes just fucked with different knobs. Then, when people got better tools, they used those tools to try to recreate that old house sound, just with better production quality and more room to actually put shit like transitions and progression into their music. This is exactly the kind of activity the author decries about modern dance music, so I'm doubting that he's actually looked at the history of house music very closely. Otherwise, his current mindset would have him rejecting EDM in its entirety.