The Spectre of Originality

About a year ago, I wrote a short article for my student paper on originality and authenticity. I was frustrated by the proposition to write an article on the lack of originality in contemporary music, quickly steering my focus toward the necessity for authentic engagement and reflection and the plurality of authentic expression. Despite being confined by an oppressively short word count, I was impressed with the direction of my article and remember musing about whether it would signify a resurgence in my own reviews and reflections on music and culture. I suppose I took my time, but I can at least partially attribute that article for this predictable, impulsive return to the desolate ghost town my blog has transformed into.

A recent interview with James Blake touched on the subject and inspired me to return to the question of originality and its place within contemporary music. The British producer’s signature brand of atmospheric, synth-driven R&B has largely been touted as distinctive and unique, so it’s no wonder he was asked what it means to be ‘truly original’. His first response caused a chuckle from his interviewer: ‘True originality is just being incredible at hiding your influences’. It’s not an original answer of course, art historians and cultural critics have long asserted that ‘original’ works are largely a product of influence and imitation which may be arranged in a new pattern or order but ultimately function as reproductions of specific texts and memories. There is a great article on the topic by Clara Bellini which I, in turn, am borrowing from, which highlights the concept of originality as a value within a western artistic canon, inextricably tied to Romantic ideals of the ‘genius’ even as these geniuses learned and developed their styles and signatures from certain music schools, predecessors, and conventional structures.

It can be a difficult task tracing back the original innovator or the pioneer. Whilst its common to credit The Beatles for popularising tape-loop experimentation, a cornerstone of the psychedelic sounds of their later records, avant-garde composers had utilised tape loops as early as the 1940s, and blues and rock artists had similarly incorporated distortion to their guitars, evoking emotional grit and power in recordings years before Liverpool’s cultural behemoth had even formed. It is harder still to trace the creation of dishes across neighbouring cultures and cuisines where ingredients were traded and shared across borders which wouldn’t be drawn for hundreds of years. No, Israel did not create za’atar, or any number of other culinary claims which have extraordinarily been asserted online in recent years. It is in fact a Palestinian spice blend, although the original ‘author’ of the ingredient is unsurprisingly unknown. In my personal head-canon, an amateur Arabic cultural theorist was hungry midway through their latest manuscript whether originality was important to 12th century poetry and concocted an unfamiliar blend of spices in their kitchen.

These original innovators and inventors do exist of course, but the point which James Blake humorously reiterated is one concerned with the creative process than that of the creative product. Whether we are observing an original blend of spices or the release of a new song, the ingredients or instrumentation are reproductions of existing structures and processes, however novel their particular combination or arrangement. Drying, crushing, and blending; arranging, recording, producing. These are all conventional processes, within which certain techniques or choices are made following or rejecting more specific conventions. Returning to The Beatles, the band’s innovative manipulation of tape loops to produce their iconic psychedelics on a track like Tomorrow Never Knows was hailed as revolutionary for its defiance of popular music conventions which treated the recording studio as an environment to capture live performances. The Beatles were among the first to utilise the studio and its recording tools as instruments in their own right. However, in defying a convention, the convention must first exist as something to deviate from. Originality, then, is relational.

Bellini’s article offers something close to a discursive analysis of originality, contending that new works of art engage in ‘conversation with tradition’, deriving and defining their originality in a comparative dialogue with ‘what came before’. It’s perhaps a cynical way of viewing art, at least if you remain wedded to the ideal of originality and the importance of the author, but I would urge you to take a step back and consider the beauty of the artistic process. Whether we find ourselves imitating or influenced by a piece of art so profoundly that we are possessed to in some way recreate it, even if it is only one tiny element like the specific tone of a guitar or vocal inflection, we are engaging in an artistic conversation which is bigger than us. We are contributing to it. That is culture.

Of course, there are a host of ways in which these influences can be abused and misused, particularly when an artist decides to imitate all characteristic elements of another artist’s work, producing something derivative. Or, as we are all increasingly aware of, artists may appropriate the elements or conventions of another culture in a production which is insensitive (cough, read Edward Said, cough). When engaged with considerately however, influences are a beautiful celebration of the human collective which will in turn influence subsequent artists to comment and create, and will appeal to a broader audience eager to engage in the familiarity of the influence and sometimes the delightful unfamiliarity of broken conventions and unusual meeting of different influences. It’s one reason I am finding so much to love in the latest album from James Blake, the wonderfully eclectic Trying Times. It serves as a wonderful celebration of an expansive career over the last decade and a half of electronic, pop, and R&B music which updates and reintroduces many of the sounds and textures he has explored on previous albums. It is also heart-achingly vulnerable, gorgeously arranged, and flawlessly produced, so I implore you to listen to it. I will likely write a full review soon.

Anyway, if you have read all this I do appreciate the engagement, I have been eager to return to the blog format to explore my current thoughts and impressions of music and culture, and I am very excited to be back. I will make no promises of consistency, I am far too busy with my degree for that, but I do hope this marks something of a resurgence for something which has always brought me a great deal of joy and compliments. Ah sweet words of affirmation.