i had a boss. before he was my boss, he was a friend. he took me under his wing, musically speaking. he showed me new music. told me what gear he was interested in. we went to some gigs.

he used to say “the best artists have the biggest record collections”.

they’ve done their research. they developed taste. they’ve been in that battle with the unoriginality demon. they’re still in that battle with the unoriginality demon. they’re always searching for new. for unexplored. for different.

they’ve also figured out what “good artists copy, great artists steal” means.

we take small bits. small ideas. small riffs. we turn them into our own. then we repeat that N times to create “a song”. we borrow. we revere. we obsess. turning lots of little differences into a completely new work. yes it’s all derivative. but derivative originality takes a lot of fuckin’ effort to get right. to be tasteful.

this thing isn’t artistic stealing, it’s the most low-effort stealing possible. creativity, originality and more importantly taste appear nowhere here.

so, is it bad? depends on your perspective on creative endeavours being worthwhile and whether you have taste or not i guess.

edit - personally i don’t think you can polish a turd. even if you rewrite it, the memory lingers.