| Let’s
be clear about something before we go any further: I am entirely in favor
of artists ripping each other off. I am of the opinion that any artist who
isn’t smart enough to steal from others and cover his tracks is a
second-rate artist at best, and that history bears me out here, in music
and elsewhere. Bob Dylan never had an original idea in his life. Joy Division
dressed up their rock heroes in gloomier clothes and in so doing changed
the face of music, to put it over-dramatically but accurately. Film thrives
on references to its past; literature is sanctioned cannibalism, feeding
on the traditions that give it birth. I am in favor of all of this, and
I don’t run around looking for people who make music that sounds like
nothing else at all. Such a quest would reduce the total number of records
I’d be able to buy, and then I’d get all neurotic and depressed.
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