I kept waiting for Lenny Kravitz to own up to borrowing parts of Foghat’s “I just want to make love to you” in his “Are you gonna go my way” butt he never did. Or did he? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Probably the most flagrant was that Ice Ice Baby crap a few years back. He actually had the huevos to say that no, they didn’t borrow from Bowie butt that the whole song was original. Course, this thread does say “Bands” which omits that synapseless wonder from consideration.
Funny that you bring up Lenny Kravitz in this thread. My band was in the rehearsal studio the other night and we realized that the chord progression from “Fly Away” was totally ripped off from “Hey Joe.”
THe song is credited on the album to Mellencamp/Rooney/Shea.
Fly Away: A C G D (or I III VII IV)
Hey Joe: C G D A E (I IV II VI III)
Not even close. I suppose if you’re considering making the second-to-last chord of the “Hey Joe” progression the first chord of the “Fly Away” progression, maybe, but it’s reaching a little bit.
No, ripping off is doing unbearably cheesey covers of songs, and then giving yourself full writing credits, like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant did all too often.
Yes, but don’t you think they (Zep) give proper tribute via interviews, etc? I always found them to be very up front about who influenced them, ie. Robert Johnson, just like the Stones did with Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf and the Beatles did with Presley. What gets my goat are the pop hits that don’t try and emulate a style but instead flagrently copy a riff, beat, etc. I’m no musician, granted, but sometimes I listen to a song and know I’ve heard elements of it before. As with text, credit is due and plagerism is a shameful theft.
I think John Fogarty was once sued for copying one of his own songs. “Better run through the Jungle” was owned by C.C.R.'s record label and they argued that “The Old Man Down the Road” was too similar. IIRC Fogarty won in court but that must have sucked to have to prove you didn’t plagiarize yourself.
First time I heard AYGGMW, I was immediately reminded of the riff from Procul Harum’s song “Whiskey Train” Not an identical riff mind you, but the feel is unmistakeable.
I don’t know how much of a song has to be copied to be considered plagarism, but the first time I heard “Limelight” by RUSH, I was a bit staggered to hear the riff from the middle of “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney & Wings. What was up with that?
The difference between sampling and a straight ripoff: sampling is generally allowed by the original artist/composer or their record company. The original composer will probably get a writing credit and/or massive amounts of money.
Lifted riffs:
[ul]
[li]George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” versus The Chiffons (?)“He’s So Fine”.[/li][li]The intro of Craig David’s “Walking Away” bears a suspicious resemblance to U2’s “One”.[/li][li]Didn’t Steve Miller confess to basically lifting a lot of his stuff wholesale? “Rock n Me” vs “All Right Now”, “The Snake” vs “Rocky Mountain Way”. And “Tobacco Road” by the Nashville Teens is wandering through my head in connection with SMB as well.[/li][/ul]
It got so bad among Japanese artists that one of the weekly top-40 shows started a segment where they played the new song, then played the song it had been copied from.
I believe MC Hammer gave Rick James credit for using Super Freak.
“I Want A New Drug” came first and then “Ghostbusters”. Huey Lewis’ record company sued Ray Parker’s and I believe they settled out of court for an “undisclosed amount of money”
I saw a special about The Animals on VH1, and it peeved me very seriously that they glossed over the fact that House of the Rising Sun was a traditional song. The band didn’t even make significant changes to it, but in this documentary they made like it was their song.