In response to Kerry's comment, and its aftermath, I would argue that
Pop music is an art form, and like all art forms it has its successes,
its marginal successes and its failures. Financial success of the artist
is separate from artistic success, but often they are linked and more
often than that, our society erroneaous equates them outright.

 

Like all other art forms such as painting and writing pop music is very
much based on a dialogue with previous examples of the art. I can enjoy
Jellyfish's first album on its own merit as many people do, but growing
up listening to Queen as I did in the 1970s, gives me (and most of us)
extra references, and a deeper level of enjoyment because I understandd
the dialogue between 1990s Jellyfish and 1970s Queen. Those who were
mired in grunge might have heard Bellybutton as wholly original, like
nothing else out then. Others might have dismissed it as a rehash of
earlier styles. I recognized it as a rather brilliant pastiche of
original songs that had a strong connection to past pop legacy, and
therefore championed it. And I don't think the whole Poptopia movement,
which sort of led to the IPO and Audities movements would exist without
that album, which would not be the same without those Queen records,
which would not exist as such without David Bowie and Led Zeppelin,
which would not exist without Muddy Waters et. al, which would not exist
without English Folk Ballads, which....

 

This goes on in every art form. I'm sure Dr. Sam Smith would agree that
the reason you need to ace the GRE Enlglish Literature Subject test to
get into a good PhD program in English is to be sure you've read and
understood the great literature through the ages so that you can better
recognize these types of connections. You can appreciate James Joyce's
Ullyses much more if you are familiar with Homer's The Odyssey. And by
using Homer's poem as a skeletal reference Joyce created a new work that
no one would call unoriginal (and yet in a way he was simply "rehashing"
a story that had been "rehashed" many times over the centuries). Your
enjoyment of Ullyses may deepen if you're also familiar with the
versions by Shakespeare and Alfred Lord Tennyson.

 

You see this same begetting even more focused in painting and sculpture.
There, it's even more acknowledged and encouraged. 

 

The difference between success and failure in much of art is how much
you're able to engage with the artistic tradition and still create
something fairly novel. Where that line falls is a topic worth debating.
Which bands are too derivative? Which bands are off in their own world
(are they really or do we just not understand the references  - aka
influences).

 

The founding fathers who created our copyright law understood how art
and other things are created. Nothing is created in a vacuum. They
wanted to give inventors and creative people a way to make money from
their creations. That was important. But they kept the terms short
(we've since expanded them well past the death of their creators)
because they also, explicitly, wanted to promote the creation of new
works.

 

Personally I like driving my wife crazy every time I hear a song on the
radio. I can usually sing at least three songs over any other song.
Guessing what begat what is part of the fun.

 

Carl Peel

Executive Producer, Killer Tracks

BMG Produciton Music

8750 Wilshire Boulevard

Beverly Hills, California, 90211

(310) 358-4434

cpeel@killertracks.com