They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery... I suppose this may be true, but, when listening to a friend's band on Myspace recently, I found I couldn't ignore its similarity to a famous band of the same genre. The tuning of the instruments is the same as the famous band's, the vocalist sounds just like the singer from the famous band and, probably worst of all, the songs are basically the same as the famous band's--except they're not as good or as interesting.

Now, I can understand the desire to emulate a famous band, a popular vocalist or an influential musician. Actually, it makes sense to do this to some degree, and everyone has influences and has to start somewhere... but this stops being reasonable when your music starts sounding like rejected material from that influence's worst record.

You have to wonder if guys like this ever actually hear themselves or if they just listen with audio blinders on their ears--can't they tell they're doing a cookie-cutter version of their favorite big-time act? Even a boom-box recording would reveal this information if they managed to step outside of their own egos long enough to be at least somewhat objective about their work.

I mean, I like the same big, famous band as these guys, and I freely admit to being influenced by the famous band I've mentioned. The difference for me is that I take measures to avoid writing anything that could be traced back to them in an obvious way. It's really not so hard. I think this is called creativity.

I find, in cases like this, imitation is more insulting than flattering.

Discuss.

Yes, and in this case, the opposite would be called laziness.

I would write more, but the Guinness speaks to me.

This is that tenuous area where the concepts of talent and creativity seperate themselves from musical ability. It's tough for a lot of people to come to this realization because of their deep seeded love for making music. But there comes a time where you're either going to have an original voice or you're going to be derivative.

Going the original route is not the easiest thing to do. It may seem a lot easier to go with a sound that's established and has a track record of success. But if you follow that path eventually people will start to call your work a ripoff of someone else's material. I don't know that I could ever tell a friend "Hey, your material sounds way too much like (insert artists's name here)". Things like that end friendships. I think someone may have to come to that kind of realization on their own.

At one point I was interested in playing with a band and they gave me a short list of bands they listened to and liked and wanted me to be "into the same thing they were".

These were bands like Gang of Four and the Talking Heads that were bringing a little funk sound into their music.

I said, "wouldn't it be more important for a bass player to be listening to funk, rather than to bands which are just sort of funky? That way they could bring some funk into your interesting songs."

They didn't choose me for their band. Aww, gee. I was so disappointed.

Well, sure. But most likely they're just guys doing the best they can, and hopefully having fun doing it. I mean, this sh*^ ain't easy, or else everybody would be making Coldplay money. I'm not a talentless hack, but I play in a goddamn Steely Dan cover band, 'cause I'm not talented/dedicated/whatever enough to be the real thing. But it's better than sitting home and watching TV. (Well, unless Idol is on the hard drive. Then it's OK to sit and watch TV.) So I say let'em/let me have their/my delusions of grandeur.

If there is a band out there playing original music, I mean really original music, I'd love to hear it.

All I hear are bands that fit neatly into one sub-genre or another.

There is a difference in playing a cover/ tribute band and being a wanna-be.

It sounds like what Erik's describibg are wanna-be's

Cover/ tribute bands are supposed to sound like the original. Everyone expects to see an imitation of the real thing. Look at all the established Pink Floyd tribute bands- they are doing the light show, the sound effects, all that stuff because that's what tribute bands do.

Speaking of which, as I started to dive more and more into the Alan Parson's Project, I started noticing the subtle and not so subtle influences from Floyd. I saw an APP video on Youtube once where the guitarist for APP show (not sure who) was playing an APP song (can't remember which one- I'll have to look later) broke into the guitar solo and played the first 12 bar or so of Gilmour's 'Comfortably Numb' solo- almost note for note. Does that fall in the 'imitation is flattery' category?

There's a distinct difference between having influences that manifest themselves in your music and just plain copying someone else.

I think that's BJ's point, anyway.

Exactly. For example, I see nothing wrong with being highly influenced by Led Zeppelin, but when your vocalist starts singing "squeeze my lime til the juice runs down my foot," etc, etc, you're either getting into comedy parody territory or just not creative enough to come up with something equivalent but not the same as the original.

The guys I mentioned in the original post have songs that can be directly compared to a famous band's songs in every possible way--arrangement, instrument tones, vocal sound and lyrics. It's honestly kind of pitiful. And yet, these guys are out playing this in clubs all over the place. I don't know if anyone actually likes them, but they're certainly not ashamed of themselves.

I guess I should be glad they're doing what they're doing--I believe Dr. Dre once said, "I'm glad there are so many wack MCs in the game--it just shows how dope I am in comparison."

True, and I agree. But on a different note, for about a century now, plagerism (sp) has been the norm in music, starting about the time the blues was first being recorded. Led Zep were a blues influenced band and the line 'squeeze my lemon til the juice runs down my leg' was stolen directly, and word for word from the blues artist Hollywood Fats. He may have stolen it from someone else.
The song was Red Headed Woman.