I recently read the absolute punk review for Panic! at the Disco's latest album Pretty. Odd. (In that sentence I instantly lost all of my indie cred... I'll review some obscure jazz album later this week to earn it back... Whatever...) and it mention in the first few paragraphs how that originality is pretty much dead in the music industry these days.

I have to say that I completely agree. Pretty much any band is a virtual carbon copy of another, the only truly unique bands have all broken up or rehashing all of their bold material into new now unoriginal songs.

Of course most who read this will probably have something stupid to say: "Oh! But Fall Out Boy is the greatest most original band anywhere" No, pretty much any pop punk band has stolen most of their ideas from each other, and pretty much all of them has stolen concepts from Jawbreaker's "Dear You" (Their most mainstream punk album) Now I'm sure that I'm just restating already tread territory but whatever, I'll bring forth another example.

Metal- Almost all metal can be considered derivative of itself. Of course some would force me to dive deeper into the genre. Whether we're talking about Black Metal, Death Metal, Trash Metal, or even basic Heavy Metal, it all can be described as intricate guitar riffs and screaming, or growling... Whatever. Most metal is derived from previous efforts of other genres. Heavy metal evolved from Glam metal which in turn is composed of elements from pop... Yes all in all bands such as Slayer, Arch Enemy, and Deathspell Omega owe their existence to bands such as Metallica, which were born from bands like Motley Crue, who to restate, were born from the pop bands of the 60's and 70's.

Pop nowadays is considered the most uncreative music of any genre. All boy bands are just copies of previous bands, the same with girl groups. Solo artist attempt to broaden their horizons, most having an already established sound from efforts with larger groups (i.e: Justin Timberlake from N'Sync, Fergie from Black Eyed Peas, etc.) Take any two artists and comparisons will be immediately drawn between them. To use a previously stated example Fergie draws obvious comparisons between her and Gwen Stefani, almost to the point where people state that Fergie is "ripping off" Gwen. Even Gwen had taken a previous trip into the realms of pop music with No Doubt. I believe that should be efficient evidence for that.

Next on the chopping block will be indie music. A genre that I never really understood, but cherished (I listen to what people would consider indie rock, pop, etc). Some say that indie music was established by bands such as Pavement, Oasis, and Blur. Originally a low-fi production now indie rock can be as considered anything that sounds even slightly different than mainstream music. Now hipsters would counter this fact by saying that indie rock is composed of bands that are "independent" or "underground". I protest this by reminding of bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, Spoon, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, all bands that are considered indie have releases on Major record labels. Now onto the "ripoffs and sellouts" One of the main forces of indie music (as considered by me) was always Stephen Malkmus, nowadays his music can easily be compared to Sonic Youth, a far departure of the inspired lyrics and low-fi productions of Pavement. Even seemingly original bands such as Animal Collective can be considered a "rip-off" of bands such as Liars.

Techno music (House, Dance, etc.) for the most parts sounds similar. There are some bands (groups) that inspired much of this genre's development such as Daft Punk. But once a DJ can mix your music with any other band and it be instantly similar, you know you're the same.

Now some who read this will instantly open of their e-mail browser and begin to barrage me with hate mail.

"(Insert band here) Is completely creative! They are in no way a copy of anything else."

So for those of you that do simply stop. Open whichever music driver you use (Itunes, windows, real player, etc.) and listen to your two favorite songs. Unless you're extremely diverse person in your music preferences they will most likely contains elements of each other.