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The idea that great art springs out of unique genius is nonsense and usually self serving self-mythologizing by artists and musicians. In the same way a human is the sum of his biological and cultural influences, a branch on a family tree, art is a sum of the artists influences.

I like the idea that a "scene" or a "movement" is a mixture of people sharing ideas and building onto previous work. You can see that throughout the history of art, music, and literature. The 20th century modernists, cubists, futurists. The whole punk and post-punk movement borrowed and shared from each other.

Art, lit, and music, is not created in a vacuum. That's why I thing in order to be a good artists you have to know art. In order to be a good musician you need to love listening to music. In order to be a great writer you need to read everything from the classics to contemporary work.

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Right on. All the best poets steal, etc.

The point is that art is a conversation. Making clean breaks isn’t an evil thing per se—deviation from the norm allows for progress, but it’s a certain type of progress. Both evolution and revolution move an art form forward. But in order to deviate, one must know.

Scenes and movements have always been important to art. I’m sure amazing stuff has been created in a vacuum, but I’d be interested to see that percentage contested within scenes/movements throughout history.

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