Where is the chord progression on the 4th beat from the joker? The heavy guitar from Beverly Hills? The whole “Im a lover, Im a sinner part”? What do they have in common, apart from the “da-da-dum” thing?
Tone Loc- Funky Cold Medina and Wild Thang…Pretty much the same song.
Within the past year I heard an extended interview or two of Buddy Buie who contributed a number of hits to the middle-of-the-road blend of pop and soft rock genres. (See the list at the bottom of the linked page). Buie confessed that the chords to his hits were essentially the same.
I remember having liked almost all of his hits without knowing at the time he had anything to do with them. There was a certain “sameness of sound” to all of them. But I would suggest that that’s a feature of any successful composer or songwriter: having a distinctive “sound.”
One whose music went all over the map was Henry Mancini. And even though he had that distinctive “sound” I suggest no two of his pieces sounded alike.
Similar things can be said of Lalo Schifirin, Dave Grusin, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, and many others who have contributed dozens to hundreds of movie soundtracks.
In other words, pick a successful artist: the thing that enables the success is that artist’s “sound.”
Think Johnny Cash or Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis.
ZZ Top and CCR have several.
If you mean that “Hard to say what something something” song; that actually wasn’t Blues Traveler.
Aerosmith’s Cryin’ / Crazy / Amazin’ trilogy was made fun of a bit for being the same song.
Lemon Pipers: “Jelly Jungle” recycles the sound of “Green Tambourine”: sitar, string section, funny percussion effects, and echo on the chorus vocal (“Now listen while I play my green tambourine-rine-rine-rine” becomes “In a jelly jungle of orange marmalade-lade-lade-lade”).
The Ides of March: I’ve only ever heard this song once, but “Superman” was a hilariously blatant rewrite of “Vehicle,” with “Great God in heaven, you know I love you!” changed to “Great Caesar’s ghost, I’m Superman!”
King Crimson: The whole first side of their second album, In the Wake of Poseidon, was a carbon copy of In the Court of the Crimson King.
Virtually every 60s group who relied on writer/producers for their songs instead of writing them themselves had a sound-alike follow-up to a hit. Motown forced it on every group and singer they had. It made sense then just as movie sequels do today.
Martha and the Vandellas followed “Heat Wave” with “Quicksand.”
Leslie Gore followed “It’s My Party” with “Judy’s Turn to Cry.”
Herman’s Hermits followed “Mrs Brown, You Have a Lovely Daughter.” with “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” though there were other songs in between because the first was a surprise hit in the U.S. Neither charted in the U.K.
The Ronettes followed “Be My Baby” with 'Baby I Love You."
Manfred Mann followed “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” with “Sha La La.”
The Four Seasons and the Supremes did whole strings of soundalikes.
The beau Brummels followed “Laugh Laugh” with “Just a Little.”
The Zombies followed “She’s Not There” with “Tell Her No.”
Brian Wilson was a master of this, even though he wrote all his own songs. He followed “Surfin’ Safari” with "Surfin’ U.S.A.; “Shut Down” with “Little Deuce Coupe;” “Fun, Fun, Fun” with “I Get Around;” “Dance, Dance, Dance” with “Do You Wanna Dance” (a rare cover); “Good Vibrations” with “Heroes and Villains.”
Shania Twain.
Just change her wardrobe each song, to avoid confusion.
Well, the Knack had a huge hit with “My Sharona” on their debut “Get the Knack” album.
But the first single from their followup LP (“But the Little Girls Understand”) was a track called “Baby Talks Dirty.” It was almost exactly the same song. And that was the beginning of the end for the Knack.
It was quite a few year jump, but the Doobie Brothers late 80’s hit “The Doctor” sounded an awful lot like their early 70’s hit “China Grove”.
The grand prize for sound alike songs has to go to Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. Is there any reason to list their songs? They’re all the same thing aren’t they?
The Essex followed their hit “Easier Said Than Done” with a very similar sounding “Walking Miracle”.
The same can be said for the Soul Survivors who followed their hit “Expressway” with “Explosion”. (Sheesh, not only similar sounding songs but both titles begin with ‘exp’)
Yes. Yes they are. 
Anything by K.C. and the Sunshine Band.
Procol Harum’s “Homburg” sounds very much like “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, though the group’s general sound was more varied. “Homburg” was not a hit in the US, though.
I almost mentioned this, specifically in order to say that I don’t understand why people think the two songs are so similar. They do both have slow tempos and mysterious lyrics, plus the same vocal sound, of course, but I think they have pretty different sounds, especially with one being centered around the organ and the other being centered around the piano. “Whiter Shade” has a heavy soul music vibe (derivative of “When a Man Loves a Woman”); “Homburg” has a more classical feel. But perhaps I’m just too big a Procol fan to hear it the way more casual listeners do.
“Addicted To Love” and “Simply Irresistible” by Robert Palmer sound very similar to me. Also, the videos for both songs are virtually identical.
I played them back to back just now, and they don’t sound particularly alike to me beyond maybe the first five seconds.
What I do think sounds a whole lot alike are songs from various “screamo” bands. Take “I Want To Get Married” and “I Had Music In My Heart, But Now My Heart Is Broken” by Showbread. Not only is there a similar cadance to their incomprehensible screaming, even the guitars sound similar. There are other examples, I’m sure, but not too many that I’ve gotten through the whole songs…expanding my horizons hasn’t been rewarding when it comes to this subgenre.
Yup. Actually, all their songs have been officially merged into a single hit entitled “Young, Young Woman Stop Cheating On My Mind”.
Bread and The Four Seasons are examples of other groups that fall into this category, if not as blatantly.
I also thought of the Box Tops, who followed “The Letter” with “Cry Like A Baby” which is sort of different verse, same as first.
I have to protest the comment about Chuck Berry, who churned out many varied classics. “You Never Can Tell” sounds like nothing else he did.
One also should avoid mentioning Great White in connection with “Once Bitten Twice Shy”, as the earlier version by Ian Hunter/Mott The Hoople was vastly better.
KC and the Sunshine Band:
“Shake Your Booty”
“I’m Your Boogie Man”
Chorus sounds almost identical.
The '90s band Everclear released at least 3 songs with the same guitar track. (That doom doom doom da da doom doom)
Everytime I hear a new Madonna song I swear it’s at least 10 years old.