Suspiciously similiar songs

Driver 8

You know the ones I mean, where you hear it, or some element of it, and instantly feel the band or artists have ripped it off wholesale from somewhere.

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Dani California, ripping off Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers-Mary Jane's Last Dance

The Killers-When You Were Young, ripping off Bruce Springsteen-Born to Run (especially the guitar)

Any other glaring similarities? (I know there's a handful of Nirvana songs that are guilty of this...)

JC 2K3

http://www.theweb****e.net/nickelback.htm (replace stars with shít)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4258547 For a radio show talking about it.

Driver 8

Surely a band is allowed to plagarise itself though? I mean what would bands like...Status Quo, Coldplay or Snow Patrol do otherwise?;)

Killaqueen!!!

Yer one out of the sugababes, yknow the one with the weird name> Yeah, her new song as the exact same music as Lenny Kravitz's 'It Ain't Over Til Its Over'...not that it's her fault. I doubt anyone has even heard Kravitz's origional song.

I think the Killer's have a lot of simalarities to Springsteen (they're the only two artists I know of that can tell a story in their songs like they do) but I don't think that the Killers copied off Bruce.

JC 2K3

Driver 8 wrote:

Surely a band is allowed to plagarise itself though? I mean what would bands like...Status Quo, Coldplay or Snow Patrol do otherwise?;)

Not exist? And rightly so?

mike65

Dandy Warhols bohemian like you (vodafone ad) and Stones Jumping Jack Flash or was it another tune?

George Harrison of course My Sweet Lord which filtched the melody from He's So Fine.

Mike.

Driver 8

the George Harrison one is a case of a successful lawsuit resulting from the similarity tho...

And where are those Nirvana examples. I seem to remember being ranted at by a punk fan whenever i mentioned them because they notoriously ripped off so many riffs...

Also, wasn't there reports of UB40 wanting to sue Paris Hilton for song similarities. But her legal woes are a whole other discussion...

fillmore jive

Sufjan Stevens- Come on fell the Illinoise

The start of it kinda sounds like the intro to Blue Rhondo A la Turk by Dave Brubeck. But the instrumental break is the exact same as 'Close To me' by The Cure. Spa.

Peyton Manning

Feeder - Buck Rogers
The Veronicas - Revolution

IDENTICAL

cashback

Killaqueen!!! wrote:

Yer one out of the sugababes, yknow the one with the weird name> Yeah, her new song as the exact same music as Lenny Kravitz's 'It Ain't Over Til Its Over'...not that it's her fault. I doubt anyone has even heard Kravitz's origional song.

Yeah, but that's a sample, not a rip-off. They would have got permission. That Lenny Kravitz song is hardly a forgotten indie gem or anything, most people would have heard it.

Crazy Christ

Tiga - Far From Home and Electronic - Getting The Message
Avril Lavigne - girlfriend and That Micky song by whatsherface..

SligoBrewer

manics new single
last james bond theme song (chris cornell??)

strikingly similar imo

Robbo

Killaqueen!!! wrote:

I think the Killer's have a lot of simalarities to Springsteen (they're the only two artists I know of that can tell a story in their songs like they do) but I don't think that the Killers copied off Bruce.

Wasn't the whole premise of the second Killers album Springsteen + Beard = Credibility?

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

feckless

Band in sounding like someone else shocker! Call the cops!:eek:

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

feckless

Libel! Call my lawyer!:eek:

grumpytrousers

mike65 wrote:

Dandy Warhols bohemian like you (vodafone ad) and Stones Jumping Jack Flash or was it another tune?

George Harrison of course My Sweet Lord which filtched the melody from He's So Fine.

Mike.

It was Brown Sugar

And re Harrison - just in case y'havn't seen it, he was able to laugh at it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSIjlUMV6Is

There was also U2 ripping off 'The Sun Always Shines on TV' in the middle of 'Beautiful Day'. I'm also pretty sure that if lawyers for Laura Branigan turned up at Jarvis Cockers door asking for a few bob from the royalties of Disco 2000 in regard to her song 'Gloria' he'd have little to argue...

Rustar

Radiohead's 'Creep' always creeped me out....I'm *sure* the chorus theme is lifted from some late-50's / early 60's movie theme.....I just can't figure out which one.

klaus flouride

Nirvana - 'smells like teen spirit' uses the same chords as Boston's 'more than a feeling'; when you listen to the 2 songs the similarities are uncanny. For those of you unfamiliar with 'more than a feeling', it was the song playing in the background when Tony soprano has a heart attack in his car.
The white stripes song- in the video theres all these pictures created out of lego, can someone help me out with the name? That song was a total ripp-off of lithuim by Nirvana. In the end we all just end up ripping off each other if we don't play or do something new.
Rap and hip-hop got around this problem by rephrasing the whole thing; Now its no longer called 'ripping somebody off' its called 'sampling'.

humanji

Driver 8 wrote:

Surely a band is allowed to plagarise itself though? I mean what would bands like...Status Quo, Coldplay or Snow Patrol do otherwise?;)

I don't listen to the radio or pay much attention to the charts, so was quite shocked to find out that Coldplay and Snow Patrol weren't the same band

grumpytrousers

klaus flouride wrote:

The white stripes song- in the video theres all these pictures created out of lego, can someone help me out with the name? That song was a total ripp-off of lithuim by Nirvana. In the end we all just end up ripping off each other if we don't play or do something new.

The song you're looking for, i think, is 'Fell in Love with a Girl'.

Fact is regarding plagarism/homage that it's almost inevitable. I remember watching (and the more muso heads here can shed more light on this, i'm sure) a fine show on Channel 4 recently about music and presented by a chap called Howard Goodall.

Anyway, his thing was that basically a chord progression became fashionable in the early 20th century which comprised of the Root Chord, the Dominant chord and the Sub-Dominant. You, me and the world (and every wannabe guitar player) knows them as the C, F, G progression (assuming you play in the key of C). For a bit of variety you can chuck in an A minor chord, but that's, scarily, a sizeable percentage of modern music.

Thus, the only thing that marks out a lot of songs is the 'riff' or the 'melody but in a lot of cases the chords will often sound like 'that other song'

I think the award for the 'longest period between original tune and inevitable rip-off' goes to the Village People, who took the chord progression from Pachobels Canon in D and turned it into Go West. Then The Farm went and took it for 'Altogether Now'...

oh - and this is my favourite plagarism case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatever_(song)

Neil Innes, along with Eric Idle did a spoof Beatles band called The Rutles, and one of their songs was ripped of by Gallagher Sr; Innes successfully sued. (The Beatles themselves never wanted to sue Innes; George Harrison was particularly good mates with Idle & Innes, hence the earlier You Tube Clip, his offering of money to produce The Life of Brian, his appearance in The Rutles movie and the fact that Eric Idle wrote the sleeve notes for the two Traveling Wilburys albums)

Malice

klaus flouride wrote:

Nirvana - 'smells like teen spirit' uses the same chords as Boston's 'more than a feeling'

I must have a listen to the Boston song. I can't place the similarity in my head. About ten years ago I remember being told by a big fan of The Pixies that Smells Like Teen Spirit was basically a rip off of U-Mass from Trompe Le Monde. I listened to the two songs and they are very similar with the loud/quiet dynamics and the main and chorus riffs. I think Cobain even admitted in interviews that he was basically just trying to write a Pixies song at the time.

Maddzy

A song on Linkin Park's new album sounds quite similar to U2's With or Without You.

Comparison:
http://rockmusic.ytmnd.com/

Xylem

Elastica's- Waking Up, sounds a lot like, The Stranglers- No More Heroes.

Robbo

Xylem wrote:

Elastica's- Waking Up, sounds a lot like, The Stranglers- No More Heroes.

On the same album you'll note Connection sounds enough like Three Girl Rumba by Wire to be successfully sued.

Still like the album though.

Pighead

The start of Never Ever by the All Saints is pretty much the same as Amazing Grace. Pighead forgave them though as it was a cracking tune.

Dennis the Stone

The start of Future Days by Can and the start of La femme d'argent by Air.. well they both have much the same rhythm going

The Robots from Kraftwerk and Get Innocuous from LCD Soundsystem

In both cases two mighty German bands showing how much of an influence they have had on music over the years

eamon234

Oldies but goodies......

"Start" by The Jam = "Taxman" by the Beatles (I know I know everyone has ripped off the Beatles at some point but this one's a tad obvious!)

GhostInTheRuins

The first time I really noticed similar songs was a couple of years ago.

AC/DC - Rock 'N Roll Damnation - The riff is a complete carbon copy of Thin Lizzy's Rosalie. IDENTICAL! thieving bastards!

DerekD Goldfish

Nirvana-Come as you are-Killing Joke-Eighties
Dave Grorl repaid Killing Joke for borring the tune by druming on a recent album of thiers
Manic's-If you tollerate this- The Stranglers-Duchees
Its drasticly slowed down but there is definatly a strong similarity

Dark Artist

Evanescence's 'Field of Innocence' and Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' have similar guitar melodies.

Michael Jackson's 'Give In to Me' and Dream Theater's 'Endless Sacrifice' have a nearly identical guitar riff.

The Fray 'How to Save a Life' and Pink's 'Who Knew?' sound hugely similar to my ears.

J.S. Pill

eamon234 wrote:

"Start" by The Jam = "Taxman" by the Beatles

Beck's 'New pollution' owes an awful lot to taxman.

I remember reading somewhere that Coldplay got permission to use the riff off Kreftwerk's 'computerliebe' after Chris Martin wrote a begging letter to Krartwerk.

Oink

Since the Beatles were mentioned, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Oasis.
Whenever one of their songs bores through my ears, I wonder why they don't simply cover the songs as they were originaly written instead of dumbing them down.
Then again I haven't heard a lot of their songs -Ireland being a democracy and all-, but the few I've heard were just washed-down Beatles material.

Dark Artist

Also, the Pirates of the Caribbean main theme sounds a lot like Nightwish's 'Ghost Love Score'.

Rustar

Steve Miller's "homage" to Joe Walsh's 'Rocky Mountain Way' - 'The Stake'.
(Nobody loves you...like the way I do...)
Complete with talkbox in the background.

grumpytrousers

Oink wrote:

Since the Beatles were mentioned, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Oasis.
Whenever one of their songs bores through my ears, I wonder why they don't simply cover the songs as they were originaly written instead of dumbing them down.
Then again I haven't heard a lot of their songs -Ireland being a democracy and all-, but the few I've heard were just washed-down Beatles material.

read my wikipedia link above....:D

Creamy Goodness

Pat Benatar - Love is a battlefield Vs. Lost prophets - A town called...

hmm where have i heard that lost prophets bass line before?

to save you's from listening to complete muck go to 1:20 in that lost prophets video.

Oink

grumpytrousers wrote:

read my wikipedia link above....:D

I.rest.my.case.

Muppets. Muppets I tells ya.


----

Anyhoo. Carry on.

judas101

The jam's 'In the city' is awfuly like a punk somg around at the same time. I'm pretty sure its by the Ramones. The guitar is quite quirky so it's easily noticed.

melsman

Oink wrote:

I.rest.my.case.

Muppets. Muppets I tells ya.


----

Anyhoo. Carry on.

ahem not the beatles they ripped off there sonny jim...... oasis are more like the stone roses and the who

and i dont even want to start on the word "muppet" - stop reading city slicker!

stovelid

humanji wrote:

I don't listen to the radio or pay much attention to the charts, so was quite shocked to find out that Coldplay and Snow Patrol weren't the same band

musically they are, they just exist in different physical entities.

eamon234 wrote:

"Start" by The Jam = "Taxman" by the Beatles (I know I know everyone has ripped off the Beatles at some point but this one's a tad obvious!)

Also Seagull by Ride. I think it's accepted to rip this off now, like the bo diddley riff or the funky drummer beat.

Also:

New York City cops by The Strokes and Lust for life by Iggy Pop

I'm so Green by Can and Fool's Gold by the Stone Roses

Town called Malice by the Jam - You can't hurry Love by the Supremes

There is a song on the Amy Winehouse album that is basically Ain't no mountain high enough (Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell version)

1999 by Prince and Susudio(?) by Phil Collins

Anto McC

"Jesus of Suburbia" by Green Day is very similar to Phil Lynotts "Dear Miss Lonely hearts"

Okie

Anto McC wrote:

"Jesus of Suburbia" by Green Day is very similar to Phil Lynotts "Dear Miss Lonely hearts"

Jesus of Suburbia "is very similar" to three songs (that I'm aware of)

In order of rip-offage in the actual song itself:-

Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes
Bryan Adams - Summer of '69
Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire

The most blatant one that springs to mind is The Stereophonics song Same Size Feet (Album released 2000) and Oasis' Hindu Times (Single released 2003)

Hunt them down, have a listen if you don't believe me!

tjsniper

If you play guitar you'll notice oasis - wonderwall and mad world -whatshisface are the same chords at a tempo

grumpytrousers

judas101 wrote:

The jam's 'In the city' is awfuly like a punk somg around at the same time. I'm pretty sure its by the Ramones. The guitar is quite quirky so it's easily noticed.

I suspect it's one of the earlier songs on Never Mind The Bollocks, actually...

Hypnotoad

tjsniper wrote:

If you play guitar you'll notice oasis - wonderwall and mad world -whatshisface are the same chords at a tempo

Michael Andrews and Gary Jules

ifconfig

Just watching the Killers here on Glastonbury.
Maybe an asinine observation but isn't Brandon Flowers basically
a 21rst century reincarnation of Gary Numan.
Similar vibe as far as I (40+) am concerned


--sorry if this is trollocks

gustavo

judas101 wrote:

The jam's 'In the city' is awfuly like a punk somg around at the same time. I'm pretty sure its by the Ramones. The guitar is quite quirky so it's easily noticed.

That would be Holidays in the Sun by the Sex Pistols , The Jam were non too pleased by all accounts.

emoKILLER

dont know if it has already been mentioned here, but kid rock - american bad ass, is just sad but true by metallica with different lyrics

Timans

City of The Damned (part of Jesus of Suburbia) is the exact same as Summer of 69.

Can't believe that veronica's song is so similar to Buck Rogers :eek: