You have everyone and their moms copying, imitating sounds, styles and images of the past as if to say nowadays all we're good for is nostalgic retro-music

You got the Aguileras/Stefani/Katy perry's of the world who want to be from 1939.

Then you got the Kanye's/Winehouse/Timberlakes/Gnarls Barkleys who want to be from the 60's/70's and finally you've got those dudes now who think it's hip to take the late 80's hip hop look and bring it back(cool kids/nas/busta rhymes/virtually all hip hop acts).

Is music today so stale than we cant invent our own fashion, and innovate musically!

VERY good points here, Sandino. I've long joked that Will Smith wouldn't have a rap career if it weren't for 70's soul music. Wasn't it Diddy who said he takes songs from the 80's and remixes them as hits?

It's odd, because as a musician and songwriter, I can see the decline in originality in music in the past 10 years. More and more samples. It's easy to sample a bass line, sing a new line over it (especially if the person has never really heard the original song, and some producer loops a track for them to "create" something over).

It's one thing to mirror past genres and eras of music the way Timberlake has with 70's R&B, or Katy Perry or Amy Winehouse has with 50's music (and older). But to just lose ALL creativity is ridiculous. Solange's album harkens back to the 50's, but you still know it's new and fresh and current to some degree.

There's something to be said for "real music by real musicians". The only music Prince is harkening back to is his own. So what's worse? An artist playing to their own past, or playing to someone else's?

I think the occasional throwback song is good. Aguilera did it with "Candyman", which is a great song that reminds me of a Bette Midler tune or two. But she didn't build a whole album from it. "Back To Basics" had a couple of songs like that, but overall it was still current to its time. Even Prince throwsback with stuff like "Strollin'" or "Courtin' Time" or "Do U Lie?", but he doesn't dwell on it. It's just a fun filler track.

Frankly I'm more tired of every singer feeling the need to put a rap section on their song. "American Boy" from Estelle...fun little song, nothing too special, but catchy and it plays good on a road trip. But Kayne "I'm The Most Important Person To Ever Live" West on it....TOTALLY ruins it for me.

I think people are so desperate to be current that they're hopping on the trend train instead of getting their cabooses on another track. It's the brass at a studio that's doing that too. It's all about what's NOW, but really...after a year or so, it sounds dated to that period of time.

I think it's because everything was done already and people are just trying to present it in new ways. Also, maybe because the last "non-throwback" product was rap and teen pop of a decade ago which is labeled as the cheapest form of pop music and they want to go back to the so called "quality"?

People will buy and listen to what is familiar to them. They are not going to buy something that isn't. These "so-called" producers realize this and craft a track that has something old, but familiar within it. It's almost like they have taken a page out of the rapper's handbook, who have been rapping over familiar R&B tracks for as long as I can remember. The majority of today's singers are not singers at all, but "performers". Except for a few, most lack the ability to write something completely original. This is why most of them will rely on a sample from yesterday. When the listener hears a song that sounds like the Supreme's "Where did our love go", and it turns out to be "I decided" by Solange", it is all ready too late because the listener has all ready be reeled in by those familiar opening chords. The end result, more money for the producer and the record company.
[Edited 4/18/09 6:14am]

because retro is the way to go These days,I'm more impressed with "new" music that sounds old,as opposed to new music that sounds like 2009.The ideas,sounds and styles of the past are so much better than the new styles.

Speaking as a 60 year old baby boomer, my peeps are dealing with getting old now and its not a comfortable subject; many of us don't want to admit that its happening.

So we want sounds that remind of us of the youngster we still would like to believe we are in our minds.

And we gots money. You want record sales? Cater to our need to hang onto our yoot.