# Anyone get scammed by sound alike compilation albums. (fakes pawned off as the real stars)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 18, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078 "2014-06-18T16:50:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/41 "2014-06-20T01:42:49Z")
I bought a bunch of those compilations of TV theme songs and later found out that they were sound-alikes.
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/42 "2014-06-20T01:44:03Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I did when I was 12. Cost me two weeks of saved up allowance. I’m pretty sure it was at [Gibsons Discount dept store](http://mall-hall-of-fame.blogspot.com/2011/02/gibsons-discount-centers-this-discount.html). They had this display bin of 8 tracks at a great price. All these great songs! Cheap! I got 3 or 4, 8 tracks and rushed home to play them. I had gotten a AM/FM radio/8 track stereo the prior Christmas.
>
> Imagine my disappointment when I played the first tape. It sounded just a little off. Not quite like the songs I heard on the radio.
>
> Fakes! The fine print on the 8 track label listed group names by the songs. Groups I had never heard of. Cover Bands.
>
> My first grown up experience getting taken by shady merchandising. :o
>
> Anyone else fall for this scam? The same music was released later on cassette and CD’s.
I’m wondering if it was the same tapes that I had bought. I thought that they were great, extremely cheap, and always good. They even had, at the top of the label 'Sounds Like…", about which my friends and I made jokes. The labels were always pastel colored labels, with no pictures, but, may have had some kind of design. That’s why I wasn’t sure when Clapton issued one of his anthology or greatest hits albums, whether it was his or one of theirs.
I thought that the bands were top quality. They, IMHO, successfully replicated a LOT of famous groups, inclulding “Mountain” and “Johnny Winter And” which were decidedly bands with a unique sound.
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### Author:  [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/43 "2014-06-20T03:14:23Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#):
>
> Only a couple of years ago did it come to my attention that a lot of these were probably re-recordings made by the original artist in an attempt to un-screw themselves out of royalties. I feel for them – the record industry is a nest of bastards. But, you know, these reproductions don’t have the sound I grew up with. I’m paying so I can hear that again.
I found a best of CD by Gene Watson (a country singer back in the 80s) and it said on the back cover that he had rerecorded the songs in order to get the royalties he had been cheated out the first time. Second I read that, no way I was going to buy the CD.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/44 "2014-06-20T03:21:20Z")
\*\* raises hand \*\*
Yeah. Fuckers. 14 year olds don’t have the money to burn.
The radio ad said [sub]Impressions of[/sub]The Real Artists!
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/45 "2014-06-20T08:00:45Z")
> [@installLSC](#):
>
> I found a best of CD by Gene Watson (a country singer back in the 80s) and it said on the back cover that he had rerecorded the songs in order to get the royalties he had been cheated out the first time. Second I read that, no way I was going to buy the CD.
All the way into the 80’s these shenanigans were going on? Well, at least they were honest about it. Who knows, maybe some people would like to support their favorite artists in that way. I mean, a lot of TV stars make money from selling autographs to appreciative fans, and I’ve always assumed that fans hand the money over out of a knowledge that there is not much of a future in being a guy from an old cult TV show.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/46 "2014-06-20T10:10:36Z")
Def Leppard did that recently. I heard a snippet of their rerecording on NPR and I couldn’t tell the difference. They really worked hard at exactly duplicating their old sound (with probably a lot of studio tricks.) Since my musical opinion of them wasn’t high to begin with, their faithful rerecording actually increased my respect for them.
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### Author:  [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/47 "2014-06-20T13:06:40Z")
> [@Shakester](#):
>
> You are creating a conspiracy theory here.
No, I’m just trying to make sense out of something in the context of what I know about how the pop music business works.
> [@](#):
>
> There have been compilations of Elton’s cover song sessions around since the 90s, perhaps earlier. These aren’t bootlegs, they’re genuine releases and they’re credited to Elton John.
I understand this. And I also understand that it’s possible the compilers were less than scrupulous, and could have included some tracks that are NOT Elton John. This is not exactly without precedent in the shady world of the music business.
> [@](#):
>
> You can _hear_ that it’s Elton John singing, it’s quite distinctively him. And he could easily put an injunction on someone misrepresenting recordings as being by him, if they weren’t.
You can hear excerpts of this album’s tracks [here](http://www.allmusic.com/album/chartbusters-go-pop%21-16-legendary-covers-from-1969-70-as-sung-by-elton-john-mw0000035976). No doubt that it’s Elton on many of them, but on a few (e.g., “Up Around the Bend”), the singer sounds nothing like Elton John. And even on the ones where we hear Elton, in some cases it may be because we’re predisposed to hear him, having been told that it’s him. My guess is that you played at least a few of these tracks to someone without identifying the artist, people would not guess it was Elton.
As for injunctions, Elton would have to take grave enough offense to any rogue tracks to bother filing suit. If he would rather forget this era of his career, a wiser course would be to say nothing and not give the album added publicity.
> [@](#):
>
> Now, I’m a musician myself, and I’ve recorded quite a few sessions in my time, and I can tell you for sure that the only musicians who are going to turn down easy money are the ones who are _already_ major successes. In that era, cover versions were recorded and released very quickly, and through the 60s and into the 70s you sometimes found competing versions of the same songs fighting it out on the charts to see which would be the hit.
This is an entirely different phenomenon that has nothing to do with this issue. The Elton John recordings in question were not recorded with the intention of them “being hits” — they were recorded _after_ the hit versions had already made the charts and were proven hits. They were strictly cash-in vehicles, intended to fool unwary record buyers in the same way many in this thread were fooled.
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#):
>
> Elton John’s rise to stardom was quite gradual. The first album did little business and wasn’t even released in America at the time. The second album was a slow grower; it may have been _released_ in April, but it didn’t start commanding a lot of attention until towards the end of the year, and both the album and the “Your Song” single (strangely timed to correspond with the release of the _next_ album, _Tumbleweed Connection_) didn’t make a big noise on the charts until 1971. Elton was surely happy to pocket a little spare change from sessions until that time. (He got paid £250 for a King Crimson gig that year–he was hired by the band’s management to do lead vocals on _In the Wake of Poseidon_–even though Robert Fripp cancelled the session and Eltie didn’t sing a note.)
This is the most logical explanation for why Elton would still be recording knock-off versions as late as June 1970. The charts confirm what you’re saying here. The “Your Song” single didn’t enter the UK charts until late January 1971. (It actually broke slightly earlier in the States: mid-December 1970). I don’t have access to UK album charts, but _Elton John_ also entered the US album charts in late 1970.
I still find it somewhat unusual that an artist who had a release on a major label wouldn’t be too busy doing promotional appearances and live gigs to have time (or inclination) to be recording knock-offs once that album was released, but it’s possible. It also could be that he was contractually obligated to the knock-off label to deliver so many sides, so he had to do this despite his major-label signing.
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### Author:  [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/48 "2014-06-20T13:39:12Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> \*\* raises hand \*\*
>
> Yeah. Fuckers. 14 year olds don’t have the money to burn.
>
> The radio ad said [sub]Impressions of[/sub]The Real Artists!
My favorite example of this: in early 1972, a British group known as The English Congregation had a middling U.S. Top 40 hit (#29) with a song called “Softly Whispering I Love You.”
About this time, a U.S. producer named Mike Curb, who had put out a few bland albums of MOR group singalong stuff under the name The Mike Curb Congregation, released an album entitled _Softly Whispering I Love You_.
The artist credit on the album sleeve read:
The Mike Curb **CONGREGATION**.
[Mike Curb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Curb) eventually went on to be a Lieutenant Governor of California. He was known for his strong anti-drug views, but as the Wikipedia entry shows, all was not necessarily what it seemed.
I always though he felt any claim to credibility with the above stunt.
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### Author:  [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/49 "2014-06-20T13:48:57Z")
> [@DChord568](#):
>
> I always though he felt any claim to credibility with the above stunt.
Wow, that sentence got mangled in my editing!
Should read: I always felt he lost any claim to credibility with the above stunt.
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### Author:  [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/50 "2014-06-20T17:35:52Z")
> [@installLSC](#):
>
> I found a best of CD by Gene Watson (a country singer back in the 80s) and it said on the back cover that he had rerecorded the songs in order to get the royalties he had been cheated out the first time. Second I read that, no way I was going to buy the CD.
😕How is the actual original performer re-recording his/her/their song any different than a concert performance, for which fans often willingly pay more than for a recording?
Of course it’s unlikely to be exactly the same as the original recording, but (1) it’s by the same artist, presumably more likely than any other artist to be familiar with and respect the original work, and (2) might possibly even be better. :smack:
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### Author:  [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/51 "2014-06-20T18:14:06Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#):
>
> 😕How is the actual original performer re-recording his/her/their song any different than a concert performance, for which fans often willingly pay more than for a recording?
>
> Of course it’s unlikely to be exactly the same as the original recording, but (1) it’s by the same artist, presumably more likely than any other artist to be familiar with and respect the original work, and (2) might possibly even be better. :smack:
The answer to this question is that the magic of the original song and performance — the things that made you fall in love with it in the first place — is in the grooves of the original record.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the newer version will be recorded using newer technology. Some people are turned on by this, but for me it’s just the opposite…the sound of the studio and the equipment of the day is an integral part of the original recording. Making the sound more “perfect” with modern technology (pristine, digital fidelity; “modern” drum sound, etc.), is actually a detriment to me.
And try as an artist and original musicians may to duplicate the original performance, it will always fall short. I understand artists re-recording their original songs for financial reasons. But for artistic ones? No…unless it’s a radical reworking of the song that approaches it from an entirely different direction. There is simply no reason to listen to an artist’s later re-recording of an earlier song. You have the original; why would you want to hear an inferior re-hash?
And how is a re-recording different from a concert performance? Live performances will ALWAYS be different from recorded ones. The ambiance of the room, the immediacy of the performance, the subtle variations in how the singers and instrumentalists approach the song. They’re two different animals entirely.
I certainly enjoy many live performances, though I also sympathize with John Lennon’s view. He said, in so many words, “I’m a record man.” He recalls being disappointed in many of his 50s rock ‘n’ roll idols when he saw them in live performance. Exciting as some of those performances may have been, they still, in Lennon’s ears, lacked the “magic” that was captured in the definitive recorded versions of the songs he loved.
My go-to example of this is Eric Burdon. When he sings his old Animals hits, he always improvises wildly around the vocals. As he’s performed these song hundreds if not thousands of times in his life, you can understand why he would do this. But his original performances of them were so focused and powerful, both vocally and musically. Between his vocal gyrations and the anonymous kids he gathers around him and calls “The Animals” — none of whom achieve a sound or style of playing remotely like what was on the records — everything that was great about the original records is completely lost.
Sorry to get off on a tangent, but it’s one answer to why a re-recording of an artist’s previous hit is indeed different from a concert performance.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/52 "2014-06-20T19:29:14Z")
There was one case where the reason an artist rerecorded his old songs was obvious. A few years ago, Loudon Wainwright III recorded **Recovery** , where he sang songs from his first few three albums almost 40 years earlier.
The point was to show a difference in interpretation as he grew older and looked back and it was brilliant.
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### Author:  [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-get-scammed-by-sound-alike-compilation-albums-fakes-pawned-off-as-the-real-stars/691078/53 "2014-06-20T20:31:39Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> There was one case where the reason an artist rerecorded his old songs was obvious. A few years ago, Loudon Wainwright III recorded **Recovery** , where he sang songs from his first few three albums almost 40 years earlier.
>
> The point was to show a difference in interpretation as he grew older and looked back and it was brilliant.
Thanks for the tip about this! I checked out the album on Spotify.
I was a big fan of those first three Loudon LPs. It was very interesting revisiting “School Days” and “Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House,” two songs I used to perform myself decades ago.
And of course “Motel Blues,” Big Star’s cover of which I’ve listened to so many times over the years.
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