There always has been and always will be a lot of repetition in music. And there always has been and always will be something clever and imaginative.
I think that sometimes we place unnecesary emphasis on "newness" and innovation. People that write, record and play songs generally want to do just that. Maybe as one comes to record, new things might fly into proceedings, but by and large, I don't find newness to be premeditated as such.
When certain people heard X music, and were motivated by it, they sought to replicate it. Alot of those early 60s English rock bands didn't realize how innovative they were. They thought they were playing the blues. But it was
their version of it, through their filter and sounded little like the "real" thing. But in the process they hit on something unique. But that wasn't the intention. Few people actually try to invent a new form of music.
So with 13 notes and a planet of billions and many centuries, repetition is inevitable.
Repetition does not mean or even necesarilly imply rubbish, cop out/sell out, lack of creativity etc. It may do, but it's not a given. And people will always be creative. I remember in one of his early posts, CFox saying something to the effect that it had all been done, that all the adult nursery rhymes had been written. Maybe. Maybe not. I hear songs from people on HR that do not "break new ground" musically. But I don't look for breaking of new ground. I look for songs that I enjoy. And there are lots of folk here that write lovely songs. They may employ the same sort of structures of a thousand million that have gone before. They may utilize the same relatively narrow band of instruments that have been well worn over the last 50 years.
But so what ? For me, the issue is not "is this song derivative or influenced by whosoever ?", but "do I like the song ?" and from that point of view, I think you'll long have both repetition and creative songwriting and recording and good songs ~ and the vice is also versa.
