The Art of the Theft: Why Your Favorite Artist is Unoriginal and Why It Doesn’t Matter
If you know me, you know I’m a huge Oasis fan. Massive. I’m mad fer it. So, for the last, almost thirty years, I’ve heard “they just rip off the Beatles.” And I respond, “Don’t forget T Rex, the Sex Pistols, the Jam, the Smiths, Gary Glitter, Stevie Wonder and that Coca-Cola song.”
One of the many things I love about Noel Gallagher is his willingness to admit that he “nicks” parts and from whom he “nicks” them. He’s one of the few honest people in the entertainment business (along with John Lydon and Morrissey, to name two other favorites). Everybody steals or borrows from their influences. Sometimes it’s on purpose, sometimes it’s accidental. There are only twelve notes in Western music, and there’s only so many ways you can put them together, so it will happen accidentally. But, and this is a Kardashian sized but, my theory is that everybody does this on purpose, at least every once in a while.
Yes, even your favorite artist. There are no sacred cows here.
“But not the Beatles!”
Yes, even the Fab Four. They admitted as such. However, they are a great example of how best to utilize these acts of theft. See, no one is original, but you can be creative and innovative. George Martin and Geoff Emerick were as much a part of this as John and Paul were. It’s taking things borrowed and doing something different with them.
We think of bands that changed popular music as being original. After the Beatles, maybe it’s Nirvana you think of. Well, ask yourself if “Come As You Are” sounds like “Eighties” by Killing Joke? The whole quiet/loud thing? That wasn’t new to anyone who had listened to college radio in the 80’s. This is most explicitly seen in 1988’s Surfer Rosa and 1989’s Doolittle by the Pixies. But again, Kurt never shied away from admitting these things.
Led Zeppelin has been sued so many times, it’s not even worth diving into. Just look at the updated songwriting credits on any song, or Google, “Led Zeppelin ripped off” and you’ll get hours of reading material. The Kings of Borrowing.
Rock and Roll is the child of country and blues. Country and blues both borrowed from each other. White kids listened to black street musicians. Black musicians listened to the Grand Ol’ Opry and The Louisiana Hayride. In spite of the narrative about racism in the South in the 20th century, which obviously existed but not in the way Yankees think it did, white folks and black folks have always intermingled. The media narrative that whites stole from blacks is only half the story; if the whites were around the blacks to steal from them, you think the blacks didn’t steal from the whites too? Whether done in a friendly way, or not, that river flowed both ways. People like good music, they’re not as concerned with where it came from or who made it as much as we’re told we should be.
Classical musicians did this as well. In this case, due to the culture of pop music in Europe prior to the 20th century, this was based on competition mostly. Either inspired by the work of a friend, or a desire to out-do the competition, but they did it. There is nothing new under the sun.
I think musicians think less of this than fans do. Fans are emotionally invested in their fandom. I mean, fan is short for “fanatic”. Their favorite artist is better than yours, because they’re different, and by extension, the fan is better than you because they’re different. But none of us are different.
All art has an objective and subjective component. As I told someone years ago about wine, “You liking it does not make it good. Conversely, it can be good and you not like it. Wine can be measured by it’s components and judged to be in balance. Alcohol, acid, sugar, tannins, these things should complement one another, not dominate the experience. You may not like that wine, you may like the wine that is Welch’s grape juice with a pound of Domino sugar that gets you loaded, and that’s fine, but your wine is not good.”
The same can be said about music. The Vandals are not as good as Franz Liszt, but I like them both for different reasons. That’s okay. And it’s okay if you find out your favorite artist “borrowed” something from a song they liked. It doesn’t make them less-than. In fact, it might make them greater-than, because if you were obsessed with making music that no one had ever made before, you’d probably never get out of your bedroom. The key is finding a slightly different way of doing it, by combining these influences. Purity is a myth.
And lastly, for my favorite “rip-off”, two songs produced by Rick Rubin, that, other than A major and A minor, are pretty much the same tune, even down to using state names: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” and “Dani California”.
Don’t get hung up on this stuff. If it takes Beyonce twenty songwriters and producers to make a simple song, that’s fine. Obviously, a lot of people like it. Don’t hate on them for liking it. She’s not The Beatles, but I don’t think she’d tell you she was (I hope not). If you’re a hipster who likes some Icelandic band with twenty-three-minute-long songs about hobbits that have multiple key and time changes, using obscure modal references and Mongolian throat singers? That’s cool, just don’t think that makes you any better than the Beyonce fan.
Appreciate what’s good and like what you like. Then, “Let it Be.”