Do you think originality exists?
 

One of those polls.

of coruse it exists. It is the ultimate in human vanity to assume that we are so genius and so awesome that we have already exhausted the possibility of originality.

In the strictest sense, no.

In the loosest sense, yes.

Which is to say that I like Mike Watt's definition of originality in saying "The only thing new is you finding out about something." This does not simply apply to the artist but also to the inexperienced listener who listens to, say, a Beach Boys album and is blown away. Personal discovery is the only original act.

Yes, it exists.

Yes.

Of course almost every band has guitars and drums and bass, but these are just tools- like, say you gave everybody wood, nails, hammers and paint, and told them to build a house. You'd get lot of shitty, weird-looking houses, some few pretty and structurally sound ones.. it's all interesting! It depends on your taste in houses.

What a terrible analogy. But you know what I mean? You might.

those who think originality is dead are the one's who have no new ideas of their own. too bad for them.

Ok. Why do you think it exists, though?

why? because humans have an ability to connect thoughts abstractly that is only latent in some other higher animals, and we are just the animals with the ability to create.

humans can create concepts never before thought of, and coud be a result of our facility with language.

I don't think existence exists

I was thinking about an answer that pondered on more specific and less vague notions of originality than that, but nevermind, thanks for giving it a thought.

No point in telling you to fuck off, then.

I think it still exsists. I just think it's harder and harder for people in modern society to tap into it. What usually passes as originality nowadays is simply a conglomeration of other things that already exsists and pressures from specific cultures and scenes.

I think people tend to try and be both original and popular, and that blocks off a large section of original thought and product, the section that nobody likes or wants to see.

in an age where every person on earth can readily share anything that pops into their heads, it SEEMS that originality is lacking, but that is just because humans come up with the same ideas independently of each other, like the radio transmissions, or television tube tech, etc.
in the past it was up to each separate region to "create" their own originality, since new ideas and concepts were not imported fro other places, and this allowed everyone to find a niche in their community, for the creative people would be appreciated as that community's own creative folk, and not as mere "copies" of the lucky first-heard-of creative folks as is the case now.

with more people alive now than at any other point in history the chances of concurrent innovation are highly increased. This is a depressing thought to creative people because ti makes it that much harder to be truly innovative, and not just re"creating" a previously created idea/concept.

humans are not the fastest animal, nor the best sighted, nor the best at hearing or smelling. We do not have echo location, or the ability to sense electrical fields, or the magnetic field of the earth, or to control our skin's pigment and texture at a whim. all these things are in the real world though.
we however, have the deep seated desire to see/feel/experience/create NEW THINGS, new experiences. this will forever drive human originality.

plus big bootie makes me horny

the sad thing is that there have been more great ideas forgotten than ever have been implemented.

Like that time I wrote that song and the later I heard an old Yo La Tengo song that sounded just like it? Dude, I totally know what you mean!!!

I think that the concept of 'personal approach to things' too often gets lumped with the peerlessness of swiping something off and replacing it with something that genuinely has no previous detectable history, at least when it comes to music. Maybe it's because I'm so into the whole 'cause and effect' business side of things, but I rarely hear something that is purely alien to everything else that exists around it. I'm split on this.

...

just ramblin'

originality is but a concept, and it exists because humans say it exists.

But does something have to be purely alien to be original? I would think that originally is closer to a witty twist on convention but, as such, needs a convention to operate. This is why, I think, one either has to be largely ignorant of the method of the convention in order to almost accidently introduce a new idea or else needs to understand the method of convention so well as to transcend it. But in either case, nothing is created from nothing as much as is the re-purposing of either elements within the art or elements outside the art made useful within it.

i dont belive in oroginality in the concept of making something from nothing. because that never happens. there is no band that sounds nothing like anything that came before it. everything is based on something and everything has influences. andanybody musician who claims otherwise is a liar. when i think of originality i look at what stravinsky said, which is, in order to make make something innovative one must take the old and make it new. or something like that. and that applies to 99% of the cases...

I'd rep you, but that would be so unoriginal. Besides, the damn thing won't let me.

originality is a continuum...name one band/composer/musical artist who doesn't have any point of reference as far as traceable influences...i haven't been able to think of one and i listen to alot of diverse music

That really depends what you mean by "point of reference". If you mean recognizable musical influence from other musicians, I would say Wesley Willis is pretty hard to peg. Certainly he was influenced by pop culture as a whole, but he didn't ever sound the slightest bit like anyone else I can think of.

Jandek is also pretty hard to trace any direct influences to. You could say "influened by the blues" or "influenced by folk music" but you won't hear a direct reference to a single other artist in his music.

Who knows, maybe some old minstrel wrote a song called "lady judith is a waif" over a simple progression of 5ths. But who the fuck really cares?

Being original is just part of being alive. Everyone is original or displays originality throughout their life. Their viewpoints, thoughts, perspectives and yes even art is original. I know its become very sexy to conceptualize or idealize originality as some others have already done, so I won't bother, frankly because I lack the talent to do so. But, I will say that no matter how much of a brain-dead, droned-out, clone of person one is or could be, at some point they have thought or done something original and unique even of its on the smallest of scales.

Far as music goes....who can really say,most really cool music seems original, until you inevitably hear another band that was doing something remarkably similar and perhaps better 10/20/30 yrs before. Then we get into influences and then we get into who started what and then we get into who did it better and I have not enough hard booze for this type of discussion.

i understand what you're saying, and what i'm saying is kind of hard to define. As far as wesley willis goes, repetitive keyboard styled rock and roll music was done by suicide before that. and of course, wesley doesn't necessarily sound like suicide (prob. never even heard suicide) but i just think of it as a continuum, an always evolving, but continuous set of ideas. never heard jandek, but i'll check it out.

This is where I said it depends what you meant by "point of reference". I can't fathom Wesley Willis being influenced by Suicide, and I don't even think they sound vaguely similar. However, I'm sure he wasn't the first person to sing out of tune over casio presets.

original combinations of things that exist, yes
from big obvious pieces to little bits
from conscious and intended blending, to unconscious experience and ideas influencing something, or just happening
everythings all there, put together in infinite ways

I agree with this. Just because something isn't original it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it all the same. Jandek might be considered original (I don't), but that doesn't mean he is all that good like people make him out to be. Most of what I've read about his parable concentrates about the myth, rather than the music itself. Isn't that telling us something? In fact I find that he is one the most overrated people ever, his songs often sounding vaguely interesting but lifeless.

Jandek isn't that great, but he's one of those that's more like a project than the usual rock thing of 'we just make some tunes, maaan'. There's nothing interesting about the Jandek myth, but I find there's something interesting in his unrelenting parity.

Originality is a bit of a bunkem term in music, to my ears. I like a lot of country, and that's been using the same 3 chords for getting on 60 years now. It's more important to listen to stuff that I think is good (and is therefore absolutely good because I AM ALWAY RIGHT) than it is to listen to something strikingly 'original'.

Sorry to weigh in with more banal say-nothing-isms. It's a slow Saturday here.

oringinality exists because we can not be sure the human race has exhausted every single aspect of life and form so therefore it has to exist because we cant prove otherwise......

I love Jandek's music first and foremost. The myth is cool, it's an ingenious marketing experiment for sure. So are various things Negativland did, but I like some of their other music considerably more than what's associated with U2 or Helter Stupid. Jandek put on one of the top 5 or 10 shows I've ever seen, up there with Sonic Youth in '85, Painkiller, and Rocket from the Tombs. I'd agree that the myth has as much to do with the blurry pictures and lack of a bio as the music itself, but I see nothing wrong with an artist creating an (doh, there's that word) original aesthetic. Meanwhile, I love the music. It's a gut level thing I couldn't begin to explain, and I don't really care if other people don't like him. It's not like I could defend his playing musically or anything (at least not on record, live he was so spot on with these seasoned improvisors behind him who'd never played with him before and had the whole room transfixed for two hours straight).

the mighty prophets coltrane,tolstoy and vonnegut exhausted all worthwile possibilities

Really? You actually want to say that out loud, in public?

originality

some person would have claimed the name, so yes
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Originality

some business or legal company would have claimed this sequence of letters spelling originality, so no, it isn't even free to use.

catching up with time on one of those posts, continually adding to what's already there. Always those same molecules, same social forces.
Nah, originality somewhere hidden in a volcano or rare new insect, not for us.

a little creativity is what we should be satisfied with

sure, i'll even repost it

irony is a dead scene

I think about that kid out driving histrctor and somehow ASSOCIATED THE ROWS OF CROPS WITH THE ROWS OF PIXEL IN A tv

I dont think there has ever been an "original" thought in the history of mankind. Everything is just a manipulation of an already pre-existing idea. Houses now replace what was once trees or caves for shelter. Birds are the original musicians. Art is just visual observation. Cavemen painted stories.

Innovation and originality are completely different.