What a great thread!

Jerry, I'm in agreement with you and Sandy about the continuing nature of 'the tradition'. But the whole question of originality is something of a red herring. After all, the value of originality is mostly due to the money that changes hands in the music industry.

What constitutes artistic originality? Everything we do, say and/or create is filtered through our cultural understandings. We make the music we make because it sounds good to us and that usually means that it sounds familiar. There are mighty few of us who can get past our unexamined beliefs and cultural norms to create something totaly new.

If someone actually succeeds, he or she'll be pilloried by the rest of us who don't have a clue about what they're trying to do.