Nirvanaâs Nevermind proves all art is derivative. See how great ideas evolve by borrowing, blending, and making something new from the old.
Hey Friends! Iâve got a mixed bag of creative and innovative topics for you. Letâs get into it.
Smells Like a Derivative
Nirvanaâs 1991 smash-hit album Nevermind is widely considered a cultural phenomenon. It received critical acclaim and achieved massive commercial success. While its release is seen by many as a defining moment of the entire grunge movement, it also serves as a perfect case study for the idea that almost nothing is original, and everything is derivative of something else.
The song, Smells Like Teen Spirit, known for its heavy layered guitar riffs and driving drum beats, became an anthem of teenage angst and rebellion for many of my generation, but its signature sounds can be traced back to an earlier era, specifically the arena rock and disco era.
In the videos below, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins explains how the guitar riff is almost completely lifted, from the band Bostonâs 1976 hit More Than a Feeling.
Dave Grohl then admits to blatantly stealing the drum part from The Gap Bandâs 1981 hit Burn Rubber On Me.
Takeaway: Creative expression is more often evolution than epiphany, but by combining your favorite influences in your own voice, you tend to birth something new.
Dracula Musical
I love a good rom-com, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is certainly up there as one of my all-time favorites. Recently, thanks to the magic of social media algorithms, I came across an interview with Jason Segel that confirmed one of my longtime suspicions.
Spoiler alert: a subplot of the movie is that Jason Segelâs character, Peter, a professional musician, has been secretly working on a puppet musical about the Dracula story.
When I first saw this movie, I distinctly remember feeling like a Dracula puppet musical was so specific, and weird, that it must have been an actual project that Segel or director Judd Apatow had worked on but never found a home for.
Well⌠it turns out my suspicions were valid. In the video below, Segel shares how a Dracula musical was in fact something he had written well before Forgetting Sarah Marshall was ever green lit.
If you havenât seen the movie, or donât know the song, watch the table read of the Dracula musical performance here. Itâs a delight.
Apatow, apparently, thought the idea was horrible and made Segel promise to never share it with anyone ever again. To his credit though, years later, when Segel brought it up again as a device for the movie, Apatow trusted Segelâs judgement and included it in the film.
Despite Apatowâs initial reluctance to a standalone Dracula puppet musical, in a new context, the idea worked wonderfully. I just wish theyâd bring a full production version of it to Broadway.
Takeaway: Not every idea stands on its own, and not every creative spark is ready for the spotlight, but that doesnât mean they are completely without value. Itâs worth holding onto your crazy ideas, even if you canât see how they make sense in the moment.
Half-a-Canoe
Seth Godin recently wrote about the difference between halfway projects and all-the-way projects. He states:
Half a canoe is worth less than no canoe at all.
On the other hand, eating half a pear is much better than not having one. You might get 85% of the value from only part of the pear.
I really like this framework for considering what projects deserve my attention. For one, Iâve literally built half a canoe before. I took over my parentsâ garage and constructed a giant mold over which I intended to tack cedar strips before glassing with epoxy and fiberglass⌠but I ended up running out of summer and had to go back to college. That project was, without a doubt, worth less than no canoe at all. It was expensive, time-consuming, disrupted my parentsâ parking, and left behind a massive wooden structure to dispose of.
Half-a-canoe? Zero stars. Would not recommend.
Time is increasingly hard to come by in my life, so filtering out the half-a-canoe projects from the half-a-pear ones has become essential.
I donât always know whether a project is part canoe or pear though. When Iâm unsure, I try to build a minimally viable version of the project and then solicit feedback. I did this recently when I came up with an idea for a quiz that would reveal your creative predisposition out of four different archetypes.
Using Grok 3, I spun up a rough version in about an hour and sent it to some trusted peers for review. The feedback? Interesting idea, but it needed academic validation to be truly useful. Additionally, the idea felt like just the beginning. Once a test taker discovered their creative predisposition, what next?
What I had in my head, and had built as a prototype, was half-a-canoe (if for some reason youâd like to see my half-a-canoe, you can click here).
To get this project to the point of being genuinely useful would require a level of time and resources that I just donât have right now. Like Segelâs Dracula musical, I donât have to scrap it forever. For now, it can rest on the table until the moment is right for me to figure out how to make it work.
Takeaway: Even though this project, as a whole, ultimately led nowhere, it required me to figure out how to connect an HTML form to a Google Sheet to collect email addressesâsomething I will definitely want to do in future projects. When testing new ideas, aim to create useful byproducts even if the main idea doesnât pan out.
Creativity Grows When Shared
I came across this visualization from Greg Wheeler of the publication that depicts what happens when you invite others into your creative process. It depicts your creativity growing instead of shrinking when you keep it to yourself.
It reminded me of a conversation I recently shared with about a piece of software he is buildingâa word processor with built-in AI features. Orel could have built the software exactly as he envisioned and simply released it to the world. Instead, he built a minimally viable version of the software and started soliciting feedback (or sharing his ideas).
In entrepreneurship finding product-market fit is when a product meets the needs of its target market so well that it drives strong demand, customer satisfaction, and growth. You canât find product-market fit alone. You need outside perspective, the humility to recognize flawed assumptions, and the willingness to adapt.
Iâm excited to see how Orelâs software evolves as he continues to share his ideas widely.
Takeaway: Ideas are cheapâexecution is everything.
Luck as a Byproduct
If you shout into any of the same echo chambers as me, youâve likely come across Sahil Bloom. A former Goldman Sachs investment banker turned newsletter author, Bloom recently published a book called The Five Types of Wealth and he has been making the rounds on the podcast circuit.
In his book, Bloom defines wealth across five domains:
Time Wealth: Control over how you spend your time.
Social Wealth: Deep, meaningful relationships.
Mental Wealth: A commitment to lifelong growth.
Physical Wealth: Prioritizing health and vitality.
Financial Wealth: Achieving independence and security.
On a recent podcast, Bloom said something that stood out to me on luck:
Your luck is mostly a byproduct of the actions that youâre taking in your life. Itâs mostly a byproduct of the motion youâre creating and the things that youâre building.
As a creative, it can be frustrating to NOT receive the level of acclaim that youâd like for the work youâre putting out. From my experience in athletics, those who score the most goals are often the ones who take the most shots. You never know which of your creative endeavors will resonate, but the more you create, the better your chances.
Takeaway: Luck might be outside your control, but your effort isnât. Take more shots. Write more pages. Share more work. The more you create, the more luck will find you.
One More Thing
Good things are better when shared. If you liked this, it would mean the world to me if you sent it to someone who might like it too.
Iâll see you in your inbox again next week.
Until then,
-Mike