This was my first thought upon hearing Leah Kate, a 29-year-old pop singer a full decade older than Olivia Rodrigo, but undeniably riding the Rodrigo/GAYLE pop-punk/alternative wave right now with her punchy fuck-you anthem “10 Things I Hate About You.” If something is working, then give fans more of it. ![]() This is a very long-winded way of observing that pop music loves a facsimile, preferably one that appears organic - especially in 2022, when young music listeners value authenticity above all else. How else do you explain punk and metal evolving into grunge, which in turn became post-grunge, and some years later… Nickelback? Again, the same “if you like this, then you’ll like that” sequence exists in every commercially successful music genre. For instance, I once heard someone say that first seasons of TV shows belong to the creators/producers/showrunners, and every subsequent season is just fan service. I probably don’t need to elaborate on the “RIYL” patterns in pop culture because they are everywhere you look, and the existence of algorithms on every streaming platform, plus TikTok, has only sped up its atom-splitting. ![]() When I was growing up, during the Y2K pop music explosion, superstars like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore sprang up one after the other like the cover of an Animorphs book, with each new act bringing something sliiiightly different to the mix while being marketed to audiences in one endless “RIYL” loop. King, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Ivory Joe Hunter, and Fats Domino to the Beatles looking to Buddy Holly and Little Richard. These patterns exist everywhere, from Elvis (however problematically) drawing influence from Black rock/blues greats B. I’m not referring to plagiarism or copyright lawsuits, but rather one-begets-the-other artistic inspiration. ![]() Whether we like it or not, popular music has a long, well-documented history of copycatting.
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