Collegian column on a sign of the musical apocalypse

There sure does seem to be a lack of real creativity in new music these days, especially in the four-minute ditties the radio feeds to us all day.

Is it possible that we have run out of new song ideas? That we’ve come up with so many songs over the centuries that every possible melody has already been used?

It’s a scary thought, but every day, it seems more and more that maybe we have run out of new tunes.

I was mostly convinced after noticing that an awful lot of the hits by current bands sound awfully familiar. That’s because many of these songs can be heard on classic rock and oldies stations by the original artists, who did a better job anyway.

But being the eternal optimist that I am, I still had faith in humanity, that it’s possible that new rhythms are still out there, waiting to be written and played.

Then I searched the “Oddly Enough” section on Yahoo news, and found a story that forever dashed my hope of anything new and original on the radio airwaves ever again.

The Associated Press reports that British musician Mike Batt has settled a lawsuit—the exact amount of the settlement wasn’t released but is said to be in six figures—over a piece on the latest album by his rock group, The Planets.

The piece’s title? “A One Minute Silence.”

This is a “song” that lives up to its name. That’s right, it’s one minute of silence. If you play it on your stereo and crank the volume up all the way, all you’ll hear is the “hiss” the amplifier adds in to every song.

After the album came out, Batt was sued by the publishers of the late John Cage’s music, who claimed that Batt plagiarized Cage’s 1952 composition, “4’33.”

As you probably guessed, “4’33” is also completely silent.

Cage’s publishers said they were prepared to defend the copyright of a silent piece because it was a valuable artistic concept with a copyright.

I would say that this signals we’ve hit rock bottom, but I was always told to “think positive.” Therefore, I’m positive this signals we’ve hit rock bottom.

There simply seems to be no possible new ideas anymore. If silence has already been thought of and copyrighted, what else is left?

But maybe it’s possible that many songwriters have become too lazy to think of anything new. Since there are so many melodies out there, it takes more time and thought to produce something new than it used to. Someone might sit down to write a song, then when the lawyers check to see if it’s been done before and it has, the person just gives up.

But that would still mean we’ve hit rock bottom. The only difference is that we’ve hit rock bottom because too few people are willing to put in the work to give us something new, and not because no new ideas are possible.

It’s hard to decide which is a scarier explanation for the lack of creativity in music these days.