@de budding,
Sound4People I think we may be arguing the same point.
I agree that pop music is lacking in originality, but I disagree that music has to be necessarily so. I believe there are things artists can do differently even though in some way it is some form of rehash.
To some degree yes, some aspects of music have been done before, but it is to what degree.
The problem is in the non-pop world, familiarity seems to me to be far more prevalent today than from the 60s to the 90s.
So if you were comparing Zappa, Pink Floyd, The Ramones, or Television, to any music that came prior to them, vs. Cold Play, or take your pick of the British Indy scene to any bands that came before them, there is a vast disparity regarding originality.
Does that mean that Zappa, Floyd, Ramones and Television are 100% original? No. There were elements in their music that had never been seen before in some of them though, be it distortion, bombasticness, use of new technology, whatever.
The problem again, that I think many are addressing is that of using familiarity. Whether it is because the artist is not creative enough to make their own music and just copies, or because the familiarity is an easy sell, because it sets off an unconscious Pavlovian salivation.
In regards to familiarity, take the film Titanic for example, or revenge films where the hero's family is killed and he/she seeks revenge. Disney and others have dozens of the girl picks the nice poor guy over the not so nice rich guy. Vendetta stories are a dime a dozen.
When one first sees one of these films, it sets of some base emotion. When you've seen it dozens of times, it no longer has an emotional effect. Its the same with music. Once you've heard the big pop hooks dozens of times, it no longer amazes.
So kids that have never heard such a thing are still amazed and we are still making new kids, but the least common tends to appeal more to the critically minded and thus we have the term criteria, and this is where objective criticism comes from in my opinion, or at least the traditional one that is used in most art forms.
The more experienced in the appreciation of an art form, generally don't give high marks for commonality and taking the easy route to that which makes the least experienced salivate.
So if you prefer, we can use the terms "more" or "less original" and to what degree.