Attempted discussion:

I was listening to a friend's band play the other night and as usual had "this sounds like..." and "this is the same chord progression as..." thoughts in my head. I realised I do this pretty often and that in a way it's completely unfair and silly.

It seems like most of the time acts which come up with melodies, structures or chord progressions that are similar to something someone else has done are doing so unintentionally so it seems strange to think there's something wrong with it.

I also got thinking that perhaps people's claims that all the best songs were written in the 60s (or earlier) are just due to the fact that the acts around that time had much more scope to do things semi originally.

I suppose you can take the whole idea even further to cover versions and whether they can ever be as much of an artistic statement as the original.

What does everyone think about all this? Does anyone think that perhaps lots of older acts stole the best chord progressions and songs before we were even born and that we've got every right to use them again? Do most of these chord progressions and melodies go even further back to classical music and such?

Will this thread sink to the bottom as nobody cares?