Have you ever turned to someone with an idea that you thought was pure genius, only for said person to turn and say ‘oh yeah I’ve heard of that before, swear you can buy it on Amazon’? The amount of times I have turned to a friend and thought I had made an original idea only for them to tell me, it was something we had seen together ages ago is ridiculous. For example, I thought of an idea making figures of people’s pets, I was later reminded that I thought of this simply because of customisable dolls and then through further research, my idea already existed.
Back to the point, nowhere is it more prevalent that originality is hard to come by is the music industry. All along the Watchtower is a song famous around the globe but many recall the Jimi Hendrix cover in 1968, when in reality the song was originally sung by Bob Dylan in 1965. Society as a whole, simply accepts this without questioning if this is stealing or simply a different take on Bob Dylan’s work. Thus, demonstrating how the music industry is more tolerant of influences affecting an artist. Additionally, a glaring lack of originality in music is the simple use of 4 specific chords.A comedy rock band called the Axis of Awesome created a song called the 4 chord song which demonstrates very clearly that a large amount of pop songs use the same chords with slight variations and different tempos, thus making them different enough in passing but clearly similar if strung together. However, why is this okay?
Remixing and minor differences between art and ideas is deemed acceptable as long is creates something that is deemed new. Simply this is acceptable because without accepting we are influenced by our surroundings and what we consume we can no longer progress our artistic output and find inspiration thus becoming totally stale and stagnant.
One artist who does this drastically without any shame is Frank Ocean. Frank flaunts his influences which is demonstrated cleary by his name which is from his love of Ocean 11 starring Frank Sinatra. In his first EP, Nostalgia Ultra, Frank uses clips from The Eagles, MGMT and Radiohead and in turn this follows the fundamentals of creativity which is to copy, transform and combine. Frank copies the Eagles’ song Hotel California, places his own lyrics on the rhythm of the song and transforms it into his own song called American Wedding. As a result, Frank is able to create something that is original to some extent but clearly demonstrating how his influences have help him create the content he wishes to.
Remixing is not just exclusive to the music industry. In the video game industry, a clear example of transformation is Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed. Prince of Persia brought the idea of parkour in video games to the forefront, but Assassin’s Creed was able to drag it into the gritty era of video games that we have today. The idea of being a vigilante running across rooftops appealed to millions, however due to the tone and artistic style of Assassin’s Creed, it saw Prince of Persia crash in popularity and becoming a video game classic that didn’t stand the test of time, hence why the remake failed. Furthermore, the film industry is not exempt from remixing and highlighting its influences. Influences are highlighted throughout cinema via the idea of easter eggs. Ready Player One is a glaring example of how easter eggs are used to flaunted in cinema, however they do not contribute to the artistic style of the film so how does film remix artistically?
Quentin Tarantino is a director who does not shy away from demonstrating his ability to stitch genre conventions together to create a film that entirely subverts the genre itself. Tarantino takes numerous scenes and camera angles from a wide range of films to help stitch together his cinematic narrative. As demonstrated by his ability to use shots ranging from the Flintstones and Psycho in his film Pulp Fiction which in terms of originality shows his ability to take qualities and transform int one unique concept.
There is a great quote from Picasso, “Good artists copy, Great artist steal.” As demonstrated by the fact this entire essay is a combination of The Most Unruly’s ‘Steal Like A Panda’ and Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix. So can we ever truly say is anything is original?
Remixing is not just exclusive to the music industry. In the video game industry, a clear example of transformation is Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed. Prince of Persia brought the idea of parkour in video games to the forefront, but Assassin’s Creed was able to drag it into the gritty era of video games that we have today. The idea of being a vigilante running across rooftops appealed to millions, however due to the tone and artistic style of Assassin’s Creed, it saw Prince of Persia crash in popularity and becoming a video game classic that didn’t stand the test of time, hence why the remake failed.
Furthermore, the film industry is not exempt from remixing and highlighting its influences. Influences are highlighted throughout cinema via the idea of easter eggs. Ready Player One is a glaring example of how easter eggs are used to flaunted in cinema, however they do not contribute to the artistic style of the film so how does film remix artistically?
Quentin Tarantino is a director who does not shy away from demonstrating his ability to stitch genre conventions together to create a film that entirely subverts the genre itself. Tarantino takes numerous scenes and camera angles from a wide range of films to help stitch together his cinematic narrative. As demonstrated by his ability to use shots ranging from the Flintstones and Psycho in his film Pulp Fiction which in terms of originality shows his ability to take qualities and transform int one unique concept.
There is a great quote from Picasso, “Good artists copy, Great artist steal.” As demonstrated by the fact this entire essay is a combination of The Most Unruly’s ‘Steal Like A Panda’ and Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix. So can we ever truly say is anything is original?
Pseudo Intelligence 