Independent's Day Radio

Every generation of young musicians builds upon the ones who came before them. In the case of bands like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, today's young acts are standing on the shoulders of giants. But musicians find inspiration in nonlinear patterns. Front man Bobby Oliver of the Los Angeles-based band Cities cites singer and songwriter Chris Carrabba of the emo kingpins Dashboard Confessional as the reason he began playing guitar. Indeed, today's nascent songwriters have a much larger palette of artists from which to draw inspiration. We're living in a mash-up world, and this approach is evident in artists like Beck, who has incorporated wildly disparate influences into a cohesive whole. As for Cities, they're doing right by their predecessors by embracing the same things that made them great - namely, learning how to write well-crafted songs with catchy melodies.