Bands that steal from old songs w/o crediting.

[lieu]

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.

Anybody have any other mentionables?

[Legomancer]

Did Jessica Simpson credit John Mellencamp for the song of his she swiped? I really can't imagine him okaying that.

[THespos]

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."

[Opengrave]

Vanilla Ice got taken to court - he paid.

[pldennison]

Did Jessica Simpson credit John Mellencamp for the song of his she swiped? I really can't imagine him okaying that.

THe song is credited on the album to Mellencamp/Rooney/Shea.

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."

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.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

Wait, is "sampling" the same as ripping off? What are we talking about, here?

[Larry Mudd]

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.

[Larry Bee]

Led Zeppelin have been known to lift the odd song or two..

http://www.furious.com/perfect/yardbirds2.html

[Ski the Soo]

I recall a lawsuit where the owners of "Elvira" proved that about a third of it was lifted, intact, into another hit song of a decade later.

[lieu]

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.

[jmonster]

Originally posted by lieu
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.

The best part was when he said that his song goes, "Do do do-duh do do" and Under Pressure goes, "Do do do-duh do dum". See the difference?

[Ennui]

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.

[riserius1]

Originally posted by lieu
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.

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.

Chris W.

[Dijon Warlock]

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?

[TwistofFate]

Dont forget Rod Stewart's "Do you think I'm Sexy" which was almost lifted wholescale from a song called "Taj Mahal".

He owned up and now all royalties (over $1 million since 1979) from that song go to Unicef.


A horrible song thats actually doing some good.

[tavalla]

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:

• George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" versus The Chiffons (?)"He's So Fine".
• The intro of Craig David's "Walking Away" bears a suspicious resemblance to U2's "One".
• 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.

[Sublight]

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.

--sublight.

[xizor]

MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" sounds a lot like Rick James' "Superfreak".

Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" vs. Huey Lewis & the News' "I Want a New Drug", though I don't recall which came first.

[RenoGQ]

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"

[Johnny Angel]

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.

[capacitor]

It was their method of using that hypnotic keyboard riff that makes the Animal's take on "House" very distinct.

Ray Parker slipped badly when "I just Can't Get Over Loving you" used lyrics right from "Every Breath You Take" by the Police.

Sampling is using a snippet of a song, enough to make the listener remind herself of the song. Then the artist uses that familiarity to that song partly as a base of a wholly new song. "Stan", by Eminem, is a prime example of proper sampling, in which Dr. Dre uses the first verse of Dido's "Thank You" as the wisful thoughts of the fan writing to Eminem. "Ice Ice Baby" is notorious for its bad sampling because Vanilla Ice had no notion of the spirit of the original song "Under Pressure", no sign of desparation or anything; he and his band just uses the beat.

[astorian]

A mentioned earlier, Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr., claiming "Ghostbusters" was copied from "I Want a New Drug."

Ironically, they should BOTH have been sued by M, because BOTH songs were total rip-offs of M's "Pop Muzik."

[astorian]

One other thing: sometimes, there's a fine line between a theft and a "tribute."

Examples? The opening bass line of Hall & Oates' "Maneater" was almost the same as that from the SUpremes' "You Can't Hurry Love."

And the opening of the Cars' Just What I Needed" was swiped in toto from the Ohio Express' "Yummy Yummy Yummy (I've Got Love in My Tummy)."

But nobody sued, in part because the "thefts" were perceived as obvious tributes to the earlier songs, rather than as plagiarism.

[Badtz Maru]

Metallica lifts a riff from Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' in their song 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)'.

[Patty O'Furniture]

Originally posted by Dijon Warlock:

...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?

I know both songs pretty well, and playing them in my head right now I can't imagine what you're talking about. Will have to listen to them later tonight...

[Johanna]

This one doesn't involve a band, but an individual—no less than the most highly regarded pop composer/arranger/conductor in India: Naushad. I mention it because it is the most flagrant musical ripoff I ever heard.

The 1965 Hindi movie Gumnaam had Naushad's hit song of the same title, sung by the world's biggest-selling singer, Lata Mangeshkar. The melody was, note for note, precisely the same as the melody of Henry Mancini's 1963 hit song "Charade." It was a complete, wholesale ripoff. The only difference was changing the time signature from 3/4 to 4/4. I wonder if Mancini ever found out about it. If India wasn't a signatory to any international copyright conventions, I guess he must have been SOL. Naushad got away with grand larceny.

I don't believe George Harrison was consciously guilty of ripping off "He's So Fine." There's only a finite number of ways you can arrange the same 2 dumb chords! The tunes in question were so simple that accidental resemblance was probably inevitable. Poor George! National Lampoon lampooned him as putting out an album Lifting Material from the World filled with titles like "My Sweet Beethoven's Fifth," "My Sweet Heartbreak Hotel," etc.

However, Yoko Ono's 1980 song "I'm Your Angel" from Double Fantasy had, almost note for note, the same melody as Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson's 1928 song "Makin' Whoopee." Here, the original time signature wasn't even changed. The copyright holders sent their lawyers after Yoko Ono and IIRC she settled for a large undisclosed sum.

[teela brown]

The first time I heard The Time's "Jungle Love," I placed that maddeningly repetitive riff as directly stolen from Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

[Junior Spaceman]

There's a fun one of the opening of the Velvet Underground song There She Goes Again, which is a direct rip off (almost actually sounding like a sample) of Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike. The nice connection between the lyrics of the two songs makes it pretty cool.

Also, at the time, Rolling Stone magazine thought they would be cool and accuse the Velvets of ripping off the riff, but they didn't seem to realise that it was taken from Marvin, and referred to the Rolling Stones version.

Lou Reed has also ripped off his own Sweet Jane riff for about half a dozen songs.

[RealityChuck]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the classic example: the Doors ripping off the Kinks' "All The Day and All of the Night" for "Hello, I Love You." Ray Davies thought about suing, but declined.

Not to mention Morrison ripping off the Ajax laundry detergent jingle (either in "Touch Me" or "Hello, I Love You" -- I forget which)

[Ferggie]

I want to know why "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" starts out "Gunter gleeben glauten globen." The song, while pretty funny, has absolutely *nothing* to do with "Rock of Ages." All that sample does is get all us Def Leppard fans worked up ("Oh my freakin' GOSH! They're actually going to play LEP on the RADIO!") only to be let down.

(That "Rock of Ages" [1983] hasn't been on Top 40 radio since 1992 when Def Leppard made their "comeback" with "Adrenalize" matters not one whit to the DL fan.)

[Kepi]

Was Jim Croce's I Got A Name ripped off by the Stone Temple Pilots in Interstate Love Song?

I've always thought that the riff in ILS that follows the line "All of these things you said to me" sounds exactly like the riff in IGAN that follows the line "Moving ahead so life won't pass me by".

You know, the riff that goes:

Dum Dum Dum Dum Da-Da-Dum Dum

[lieu]

You know, Ferggie, Heart had a song (I forget the name now, dammit) butt every time it would start it sounded just like Judas Priest's You've Got Another Thing Comming." Anybody remember what that was? Bueller? Bueller...

[Swede Hollow]

<<<<Quote by HenrySpencer: Lou Reed has also ripped off his own Sweet Jane riff for about half a dozen songs.>>>>

It seems normal for a lot of song writers to reuse their own works. There are lots of Creedence Clearwater Revival songs that are reworkings of each other. Of course there is also Bob Seeger with Old Time Rock & Roll and Katmandu.

Has anyone else noticed a similarity between Led Zeppelin’s The Battle of Evermore and The Youngblood’s Darkness, Darkness? They’re not the same song, but they seem to have similarities. I'll have to dig out the ol' LPs to compare.

[Ferggie]

Ah, if we're talking about people ripping themselves off:

You can sing "Promises" (Euphoria, 1999) to the tune of "Photograph" (Pyromania, 1983)

"When Love and Hate Collide" (Vault, 1995) to the tune of "Miss You in a Heartbeat" (RetroActive, 1993)

and "21st Century Sha La La La Girl" (Euphoria, and yes that really is the name of the song) to the tune of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Hysteria, 1987)

All Def Leppard, naturally.

[Harvey The Heavy]

The band KISS has been caught doing this a few times. In 1998 they were sued by Alice Cooper because their song "Dreamin'" sounded too much like "Eighteen". I think it was settled out of court. Back in 1975 they released a song called "She", which featured a guitar solo lifted note for note from The Doors "Five To One".

[thermalribbon]

Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" totally rips-off the song "Good Times" by Chic.

But aside from complete rip-offs, there is nothing wrong with a band letting it's influences show. The whole art world - from literature to painting to filmmaking etc. - is full of rip-offs / tributes / homage / influence / plagiarism. I guess the artisty comes in understanding the fine line between rip-off and creating something new.

[Pukka_Ag]

I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable source for recognizing where new R&B songs were sampled from, but I simply cannot remember where Janet Jackson got that little ding-ding riff on "Want Somebody to Call My Lover." It drives me crazy every time I hear it - anybody know?

[Johanna]

Speaking of Bob Seger's "Katmandu," where do you think he ripped off the guitar riff from? None other than Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven."












BTW, whenever someone asks me what they should name their cat, I answer "Mandu."

[Louie]

One of the VH1 Behind the Music shows was on the career of Weird Al Yankovic. One of the stories about him was that he asked for permission from Coolio to parody the song "Gangsta Paradise" for "Amish Paradise". Weird Al thought he received permission and recorded the parody, but Coolio said that he didn't get permission and he was totally upset about Weird Al making fun of the true message of the song.

The stupid thing about this argument was that Coolio treated that song as his own song, even though it had the exact tune to one of Stevie Wonder's song (something "Paradise", I forgot the complete name of the original song)

[Dijon Warlock]

Originally posted by Attrayant

I know both songs pretty well, and playing them in my head right now I can't imagine what you're talking about. Will have to listen to them later tonight...

It's right between the BotR lyrics:

"All I Need Is A Pint A Day
If I Ever Get Out Of Here." ...and... "Well, The Rain Exploded With A Mighty Crash As We Fell Into The Sun"

Nifty little riff, and when I first heard the opening to "Limelight" I [i]knew I recognised it, but couldn't place it for a long time.

[Dijon Warlock]

Originally posted by Dijon Warlock:

I knew I recognised it, but couldn't place it for a long time.

...is what I meant, there. It wasn't that exciting.

[Sir Rhosis]

Is credit given, or in anyway has Rush ever ackowledged the smilarity of a few lines from one of their songs (can't remember the title) to "Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel?

SOUNDS OF SILENCE:
"And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls, and echoed in the sounds of silence."

The Rush song has a very similar verse, not word for word, but close, but goes on to something about "salesmen."

I always thought the song "Breaking Us In Two" by Joe Jackson sounded very much like "Day Afer Day" by Badfinger.

DAY AFTER DAY
"I remember finding out about you."

BREAKING US IN TWO
"Always something breaking us in two."

Sir Rhosis

[moggy]

Wasn't "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve supposed to be a total ripoff of some Rolling Stones song? I don't know this for a fact, can anyone verify? What was the Stones song that they stole? I think I even heard that the Stones took them to court.

[Dijon Warlock]

Originally posted by Sir Rhosis
Is credit given, or in anyway has Rush ever ackowledged the smilarity of a few lines from one of their songs (can't remember the title) to "Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel?

SOUNDS OF SILENCE:
"And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls, and echoed in the sounds of silence."

The Rush song has a very similar verse, not word for word, but close, but goes on to something about "salesmen."

Sir Rhosis

The song is "Spirit of Radio" and the verse in question is:

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,
Concert hall
And echoes with the sounds of salesmen.
Of salesmen.
Of salesmen.

Never noticed that one before. Good catch.

[Junior Spaceman]

Originally posted by moggy
Wasn't "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve supposed to be a total ripoff of some Rolling Stones song? I don't know this for a fact, can anyone verify? What was the Stones song that they stole? I think I even heard that the Stones took them to court.

This wasn't a ripoff - they sampled an orchestral cover of a Rolling Stones song - that cascading strings riff - and were sued by RS management. I think the Stones now own that song 100%.

Check out here to read more about it.

[Biggirl]

Originally posted by Louie
One of the VH1 Behind the Music shows was on the career of Weird Al Yankovic. One of the stories about him was that he asked for permission from Coolio to parody the song "Gangsta Paradise" for "Amish Paradise". Weird Al thought he received permission and recorded the parody, but Coolio said that he didn't get permission and he was totally upset about Weird Al making fun of the true message of the song.

The stupid thing about this argument was that Coolio treated that song as his own song, even though it had the exact tune to one of Stevie Wonder's song (something "Paradise", I forgot the complete name of the original song)

Steve's song was Pastime Paradise. I saw that Behind The Music show also. WA did get permission from Coolio's "people". Now the question is: Did he get permission form Stevie Wonder's "people". You'd have to, wouldn't you?



And lieu, stop saying "butt". You're making me laugh inappropriately.

[tavalla]

Originally posted by Pukka_Ag
I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable source for recognizing where new R&B songs were sampled from, but I simply cannot remember where Janet Jackson got that little ding-ding riff on "Want Somebody to Call My Lover." It drives me crazy every time I hear it - anybody know?

That little guitar bit at the front? It's "Ventura Highway" by America.

[hegel]

led zeppelin's "going to california" vs. pearl jam's "given to fly"

[Infovore]

One day recently I was in Sam Goody's and heard Alan Parsons' "Sirius" (the one they play before Bulls games). I said to da spouse, "Isn't that nice--they're playing Alan Parsons in a kiddy-pop store..." Then somebody started rapping over it. I went up to check and found out it was P. Diddy's new one, "The Saga Continues." They let me look at the CD insert--"A. Parsons" got a writing credit after about seven other people, even though they played practically the entire song under the rapping. No mention of "Sirius," though.

[Sam Stone]

On the other hand, some musical forms have constant themes running through them that make a lot of songs sound the same. The blues are a great example of this - part of the 'art' in the blues is to take the same basic musical styling and say new things with it. I wouldn't even want to try to count how many songs out there have the 'Bo Diddley Beat' (it goes, "Dum Dum Dum, DA Dum Dum"). Or how many subtle variations to a number of Robert Johnson songs have been recorded.

As John Fogerty said when he had to defend himself against plagairizing his own songs, "Look, this is where I come from, this is the music I know. The only way you're going to be able to get me to stop writing songs that sound similar is to rip the culture out of me."

Or something like that.