Creativity in popular culture is declining faster than the job market. For example more than 3000 recorded cover versions of “Yesterday” by The Beatles exist. Given that this song is broadly celebrated commemorating it is justified. However squeezing every ounce of marketable value from it is a discordant travesty to both The Beatles and to today’s generation.
There is a distinct line between honoring a band and freeloading from its ideas but many bands have consciously and guiltlessly crossed the line in order to compensate for their own lack of creativity. Too often celebrities designers musicians and artists are neglecting innovation in favor of recycling old ideas.
In addition to “Yesterday many other popular songs are either covers or byproducts of original thought: Jill Sobule sang the first version of I Kissed a Girl” in 1995 before Katy Perry’s adaptation in 2008; No Doubt’s “It’s My Life” is a cover of Talk Talk’s 1984 version; and Flo Rida Britney Spears Jessica Simpson and Marilyn Manson have all sung spin-offs of Dead or Alive’s song “You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record).”
Innumerable talented performers are struggling to stay afloat in the music industry yet the most popular artists insist on regurgitating previous work. Unfortunately most people do not realize that this is essentially plagiarism. Simply sauntering into a Coffeehouse performance at Pepperdine is testimony that musical talent is not in short supply. These college students turned-amateur-artists show more creativity and aptitude than artists who are paid millions of dollars to strut around in four-inch heels feebly attempting to reincarnate The Beatles in a sexy voluptuous form.
The movie industry also suffers from chronic repetition. Clever original movies are scarcer as producers rely on past movies and sequels for inspiration. Remakes such as “The Italian Job Parent Trap Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and the upcoming “Star Trek” are meager attempts at making money but they are not as pathetic as ubiquitous sequels to “The Fast and the Furious The Matrix High School Musical” and “Legally Blonde.” Producers rely heavily on books (“Harry Potter” and “Twilight”) and comic strips (“Watchmen”) for movies as well.
Creativity flourished in popular culture before the twentieth century: Dante Alighieri Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra William Shakespeare John Milton Herman Melville the Brontà sisters and Nathaniel Hawthorne were all adept at constructing brilliantly unique and rich storylines saturated with symbolism and purpose. In comparison to the bland and repetative plots composed today these stories are saturated with significance and originality.
Fashion designers do not fare any better. In 2008 designer Christian Siriano won Project Runway with his 1700s-inspired collection. Instead of inventing his own foundation Siriano – as is all too common for artists in this industry – looked backwards to the fashion of the past and incorporated many second hand ideas into his designs. Creativity is trapped by close-mindedness; limiting the possibilities of the future by forging the past is a catch-22 that restricts authentic creativity.
In all fairness some celebrities do attempt to showcase their creativity. Avril Lavigne for example began to sport her “Sk8er Girl” persona with the release of her first album “Let Go” in 2002. However though strutting around in Converse plaid skirts and neckties was a legitimate attempt at originality at the time it ultimately reiterates the dismal state of creativity in popular culture.
Using an eight to symbolize the ‘ate’ sound is not clever at all – symbology has been around since hieroglyphics. Converse shoes were trendy far before Levigne was born and wearing her dad’s necktie only proves that playing dress-up is now acceptable at “l8r” ages. Shakespeare practically invented his own language; “sk8er boi” is apparently the best today’s celebrities can invent.
Modern art is also incredibly dispossessed of originality in comparison to the art from the 15th 16th and 17th centuries. One of the most well-known modern artists is Andy Warhol whose paintings of Campbell’s soup cans are famously on display in the Museum of Modern Art. In contrast to Michelangelo’s sculpture of “David da Vinci’s Mona Lisa Raphael’s painting of the School of Athens” and Monet’s “Water Lilies Warhol’s soup cans pale in comparison.
Though there have been numerous artistic movements, the pop art movement Warhol exemplifies differs from movements such as romanticism, rococo, impressionism and cubism in that pop art is based upon replication of material ideas (soup can, Marilyn Monroe) instead of ideals (emotion over reason, elegance, transient visual impressions, fragmentation). This greatly encumbers the artistic imagination; artists no longer need to conceive ideas internally to construct a work of art.
Undoubtedly, artistic talent has not waned – the nearly flawless reproduction of Monet’s Woman with a Parasol” on display in the Sandbar is proof. Yet popular culture insists on displaying paint splatters on a canvas as art greatly discouraging genuine creativity. Nevertheless paint splatters and streaks may be considered aesthetically pleasing but compared to the emotional thematic and symbolic meanings behind a da Vinci painting for instance paint splatters seem much less significant.
Reworking the past is not altogether discreditable; this may bring new and fresh ideas to society. However one lesson today’s generation should learn from the past is to value the future. Popular culture has become too reliant upon precedents; this in turn obstructs progress and innovation and impedes genuinely inventive artists from reaching their full potential.
So instead of buying yet another cover of “Yesterday” on iTunes search beyond the top 10 songs to discover and support those who embody true ingenuity.