@JasonR86: I was talking about song structure in a super general sense (e.g. I don't instantly decide a song sucks if I hear a bridge after the second chorus or I'd miss out on Creep and a zillion other great songs that do that), but I totally agree with you when it comes to specific musicians doing the same thing over and over and borrowing a little too much from each other. Songs by Ke$ha, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry use so many of the same elements sometimes its hard to tell them apart...
5) Music that follows a formula. There are a lot of bands that follow a specific formula on every one of their albums. There's the heavier songs that all sound alike, the ballads that all sound alike, the acoustic songs that all sound alike.
I think you're talking about a different kind of formula here -- but (on an unrelated note) I think traditional song structure, chord progressions, rhyming schemes, beats, and word-syllable-stress-points (whatever you call that) are good things because they can help songwriters express themselves better by allowing them to focus on just what they are good at (e.g. some people are good at lyrics, others at melody, others at rhythm, etc).
At least for me, writing any song would be overwhelming without having what I know of formulas as reference.
I hate it when people use "indie" as a genre because not being associated with a major label doesn't have much to do with style.
Indie acts, just like indie games and indie movies, are generally quite unique because there's less pressure from giant companies to sell a ton of product. However, that uniqueness isn't a musical category: Sufjan Stevens (who I love) and Dirty Projectors (who I hate) are both indie but have nothing stylistically in common.
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