It's rare to come upon an original musician these days. Perhaps it's not any rarer than before, but with the millions of songs coming out per day, it takes time to work through the dredge.
To be honest, most of it seems uninventive, as if the singers/song-writers/bands settled at mimicking their favorite bands without moving on (or taking the time?) to discover their own sound.
Perhaps I'm too critical. But the truth is, I can tell exactly who some of these musicians grew up listening to.
Hello, Bob Dylan. Seriously, this one guy had the same voice inflections and cadences almost as if he was purposely parodying Dylan. I think he played one too many covers.
Oh, look. It's the Violent Femmes resurrected. (Actually, Violent Femmes sounds good. Pause for a moment while I go find some of their music.)
Okay, I'm back. Let me resume my rant.
Then there's U2 revisited. And revisited again. And again. I love U2. But we don't need twenty of them. I could give some specific examples, but I won't.
And this band grew up on the Ramones. Even more, this band grew up on pirated copies of their concerts (back when we taped things). The guitars are muffled and blurry like the pirate tapes.
Mimicking is a necessary part of the learning process, but not moving beyong that is like never turning thirteen.
Of course, I wonder if my writing's the same--second-rate copies of my favorite writers.
Or look at A Fine Frenzy who mimick Over The Rhine. And all the Arcade Fire copy cats. It's as old as time itself. A band becomes big, then all of a sudden there are a bunch of copy cats that come out with a very similar sound. Remember the ska phase a few years back? That was just as bad. Sadly, a lot of producers get their grubby little mits on them and ruin the bands to sound like someone else. A friend told me about a band from Philly called The Kit Kats. They were big locally and got signed to a major record label who made them change their name. Sadly, they died a quick and painful death.
and now i'm trying to figure out which "artists" you're criticizing underneath those references to who they're mimicking.
speaking of dylan, i saw jakob dylan (the son) in concert last night! i'll be writing a post soon . . . but there will be something in there of how like his dad he sounded . . . and i'm not even that familiar with the legend's stuff.
and speaking of the ramones, the band that opened for jakob dylan did a fun riff song about growing up going to concerts. the lead singer guy was saying his very first concert was the ramones and how much he loves great rock and roll music, original music, the kind of music we had come to see that night. so very in the same spirit you exude here.
wait, were you there last night? why didn't you say hello?? were you shy??! :)
That's funny!
World's colliding cyberly.
I've been teaching Zane with an art book that I really like. We go over some vocabulary, look at the art d'jour, discuss and interpret what we're seeing, then do a project to incorporate it all. While he's doing his project, I read to him a short biography of the artist in the lesson and we've been listening for commonalities.
The first is always, "he/she found a new way" of whatever. Painting, sculpting, drawing...They learned the "rules" and found a new way.
I often wonder the same thing about my writing. Especially since there's nothing new under the sun. :)
Great way to teach!
I know that C.S. Lewis said not to worry about being original but to worry about writing well, so it's not so much trying to be original. I'm worried about not moving beyond and putting my own slant (voice) on things.
Mich, you've got your own voice!
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