The songs are the same, just dressed differently.

 

Every Song is the Same

Scott Miller said "Originality is unmusical". He believed that music is about building on that which you love and striving to be "original" means you didn't think enough of the music to begin with. (That part is mine)

But I've been listening to a lot of music lately and noticing that pretty much all "Pop" and "Rock" music is reinventing something with new technology and new takes. 

For instance, I'm not sure anyone has ever really recognized that Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town is really a soul record. But the critics of the day would not have allowed that to permeate their crispy white Rock world. So, instead of realizing that Bruce was writing Curtis Mayfield and Temptations songs, they focused on the blue collar message and raspy voice and whitewashed him. 

Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” is another example.

At first glance, it is a Springsteen song: longing, escape, regret, the restless American dream.

But underneath, it is practically a Motown song.

The handclaps. The vocal arrangement. The pop structure. The immediacy.

Springsteen was not abandoning his identity. He was revealing another layer of it. The great rock songwriter was also a pop craftsman.

The same thing happened when other artists reinterpreted existing songs. Zoot turning “Eleanor Rigby” into a heavy rock statement does not change the song. It exposes something that was already there: the darkness, the loneliness, the weight.

The clothes changed.

The skeleton remained.

Adam Ant is another purveyor of this. He, and Bowie. But they are separate in that Bowie was a master of reinvention, constantly becoming someone new. He had an ear to the underground. He knew how to bring it to the public. Adam is a post-punker/punker who moved into dance, and rockabilly and pop and, deep down, all the songs are the same, just gussied up a little differently. And his voice is better, more elastic, more interesting.