Everything Old is New Again

The travesty that was Sam Smith winning multiple Grammy awards last week for serving up a slowed down version of a song Tom Petty did much better 26 years ago reminded me of a well-worn saying. Everything old is new again. While this idea holds true in virtually all facets of life, it seems to be especially true in the world of entertainment. Reboots, remakes, sequels, prequels, and music sampling are just some of the ways artists (and non-artists) find a way to turn something old into something that people will happily plunk down their hard-earned cash for again.

One of the first times I ran across this trend was way back in 1983. I was still in grade school and too young to realize that everything fresh and new wasn't necessarily also original. I was singing along in the backseat to the band Naked Eyes' hit, Always Something There to Remind Me, when my mother sitting in the driver's seat explained that the song had been a hit 20 years earlier. It seemed some strange, ancient creatures named Burt Bacharach and Hal David had written it as a hit for a few different singers of the day, including Dionne Warwick, a woman I only knew from her appearance in the We Are the World video. I'll bet many of Sam Smith's young fans think of Mr. Petty in a similar fashion.

This trend hit me again today while in the Gap, of all places. While waiting for the film, Paddington, to start (a film based on a children's literature character that first appeared 57 years ago by the way) the clothing store of choice for suburbanites everywhere was playing a tune that sounded exactly like an up-tempo version of Lou Reed's Sweet Jane. Like Sam Smith's rip-off of Petty, the lyrics were different, but there was no mistaking the melody. And I'll bet none of the kids shopping there had any clue as to the song's obvious ancestor.

I hear this in music all the time these days and I'm sure this era isn't unique. My recollection of Naked Eyes on that car stereo is proof of that. Today it's Pitbull and Christina Aguilera sampling A-ha or Selena Gomez singing a tune such as Love You like a Love Song that would have sounded perfectly at home on one of Wham!'s mid-80s albums. Twenty years from now, some teenage pop-star will probably be rehashing old Taylor Swift tunes.

Earlier this weekend I saw two more family films on cable. Oz the Great and Powerful is a recent, but poor sequel to the classic 1939 film and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is a sequel to the 2003 remake of a movie released in 1950. If that isn't enough for you, later this year we'll be treated to the big budget sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, a reimagining of Mad Max and what I fear will be a terrible remake of the 1994 cult classic, The Crow.

Books aren’t immune to this phenomenon either. Stephen King released Doctor Sleep last year, a sequel to his excellent 1977 novel, The Shining. And that wasn’t the first time he revisited one of his earlier works. In 2001, he and Peter Straub wrote Black House, a follow-up with the protagonist from their 1984 collaboration, The Talisman. Of course, series are a literary staple as well. If we love a particular fictional world or set of characters, we’ll snap up book after book in order to keep up with their latest adventures. Some of the best known current series include George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and E.L. James’ 50 Shades trilogy.

My own debut novel, a modern tale of the zombie apocalypse entitled Storm Orphans, was compared by many to the hugely popular, The Walking Dead. I've never seen the comic or an episode of the TV series, but just the fact that they both feature the undead hunting down a group of survivors in and around Atlanta suggests they at least tread on some similar territory. While pitching my current Young Adult work-in-progress to friends, I've heard comparisons to The NeverEnding Story, Spy Kids 3, and The Matrix.

I think what all this points to is that it's become extremely rare for any new work of art to be truly original. Whether intentional or not, an educated audience is going to recognize aspects of any new work as reminiscent of something that came before. Always something there to remind me, indeed.