The Hunt For Creativity.

   Creativity. Everyone seems to be lacking it nowadays. It is almost impossible to listen to a song, read a book, or watch a movie without having that “I’ve seen or heard this before” feeling. Before I continue on to explain what I mean, I must make a few things clear first.  My first point is that there are only 7 non overlapping original story plots. As I recall from Mrs. Hewsen’s class last year, the plots are man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. the environment, man vs. machines/technology, man vs. the supernatural, man vs. self, and man vs. god/religion. My second point being that books, movies, and songs, are the same thing, just represented in a different way. My example to clarify what I mean is about Alice. There are numerous books telling the story of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland. On top of the books, there are multiple movie versions and quite a few songs that are about Alice in Wonderland or reference to it such as White Rabbit and Alice. Each different source still shares the common theme of telling Alice’s adventures.
    Books and movies are great sources of entertainment and culture, but when you start mixing the two is when it starts to get disappointing. It’s one thing if you want to make a movie based off a book, but to redo that movie/book over and over again is another. There should be a limit when it comes to movies. If you make one movie based off a book that should be it, no remakes, no special editions, nothing, except what’s already done. Another disappointing thing about the whole movie/book combo is that they always leave out the best parts! I can’t even begin to count how many times I was disappointed to find out a favorite part from a book was cut out of a movie and I’m sure I am not alone.
    Another thing, what is a song anyway? It’s nothing more than a sung poem really… if it’s done right. Songs are great sources of literature, culture, and learning when they’re done well. They also tend to tell a tale as well, almost like a secret story for you to find or piece together.  Personally, out of the three sources of literature and language that I listed, music would be my favorite, but even in today’s culture music is starting to become redundant like books and movies. You know things aren’t going so well creative wise when artists are covering other artists’ songs from the same decade. I just stumbled across a well known artist covering a song that came out last year from another well known artist.  

   Also, it seems like every time the radio is turned on, quite a few of the “new” songs that they are playing are just remixed and redone versions of songs from the early 90’s and 80’s that they don’t think we’ll catch on to.  I’ve noticed that it is mostly hip hop and rap type artists that are making these remixes. I think the worst part about this is that they usually don’t give credit where credit is due, usually due to some ridiculous loophole. If you are going to reuse someone else's creatively put together song, their own poetic words, at least give them credit. There are many examples of this but I think the most obvious one that I can think of at this moment would be Jason Derulo. The Chorus and name of Jason Derulo’s Watcha Say is clearly taken Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek. But how many people know that or even know who Imogen Heap is? As much as I recommend listening to the whole song, for educational purposes, you can skip to 2:50 in Imogen Heap’s song to hear where the original “mmm watcha say” came from. Hide and Seek was released back in May of ‘05 and has received barely any recognition. Jason Derulo used the song for his ‘09 hit which topped charts and received other recognitions, which Imogen Heap didn’t get any credit from.
    Not to go too far off topic, but speaking of rap/hip hop and language, I find it extremely funny how the tone of a song will decide how a person reacts to it. I know many people that claim to hate particular rap songs, yet when they hear a cover of it by a pop or punk artist, aka punk goes crunk, they fall in love with it automatically. I don’t mean to be so negative about books, movies, and music since I love them just as much as the next person,  but this lack of originality and creativeness is slowly starting to get out of hand. What’s the point of having all these wonderful options if they are only going to steal the original works and words of other people and pass them off as their own?