Me either. Other than the call-and-response “Hey (Hey) You (You)”, the songs don’t sound similar at all.
It was a claim made by Avril Lavigne’s manager while they were being sued for her hit song “Girlfriend” sounding too much like “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”.
Yeah, most of the riffs in these thread would fall under the category of homage, subconscious borrowing, or public domain to me. I mean, yeah, Free and Steve Miller have some superficial similarities, but I consider them distinct riffs. I would not confuse one for the other.
Under the category of homage:
Little Richard’s You Keep a-Knockin’
Led Zeppelin’s Rock & Roll
And while I do think Led Zeppelin did some real wholesale ripping off of other artists, this one does fall under the category of homage to me. Given the song title, I think borrowing the feel of the drum intro to Little Richard’s song was a direct tip of the hat to their rock and roll predecessors.
Devo - Uncrontrollable urge
Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop
All of the above indeed resulted in lawsuits, as did these:
New Order’s “Run2” vs. John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
Men at Work’s “Down Under” vs. “The Kookaburra Song”
Some obscure examples: Anathema’s “Hope” totally nicks the main riff of Pete Townsend’s “White City Fighting”, and Dream Theater has knowingly [del]ripped off[/del] “paid homage” to Metallica, Linkin Park, and numerous other bands.
Amusingly, the Megadeth song “When” blatantly rips off Metallica’s “Am I Evil?” – Dave Mustaine himself admits that it was intentional, as an F.U. to Metallica for stealing his song “Mechanix” and renaming it “The Four Horsemen”. (The ultimate irony, of course, is that “Am I Evil?” was originally by Diamond Head, not Metallica!)
Actually, this one should go in the recent “one melody, two sets of lyrics” thread, but what the hell… Phil Manzanera’s song “Frontera”, off Diamond Head, has the same melody as Robert Wyatt’s song “Team Spirit”, off Ruth is Stranger than Richard, but the lyrics are completely different. Both albums were released in 1975, and the two artists have worked together, so I assume they must have said something like, “Hey, let’s each of us take this tune and write our own lyrics to it and see what we come up with.”
I can’t get to youtube from work, but Kenny Wayne Shepperd’s While We Cry sounds identical to Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter (KWS’s song is on the album, “Ledbetter Heights”, hmmmm…)
They both claim they are homages to Hendrix’s Little Wing, but KWS’s song sounds like the instrumental version of Yellow Ledbetter (which can be nice if I’m in a particularly bad mood - Vedder’s pain inflected cries become unintelligible caterwauling depending on my mood).
While We Cry was on Ledbetter Heights which came out in Sept. '95.
Yellow Ledbetter (according to Wikipedia) was the B side to Jeremy in '92.
So I guess Kenny Wayne Shepperd was the thief there.
All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople
Dare If You Dare - Stone Temple Pilots
The chorus is very close in all three, and the verses from the STP song are similar to Mott The Hoople as well.
“Too Late for Goodbyes” by Julian Lennon also comes to mind. (But there, it’s in the verse, not the chorus.)
The main riff in Glenn Miller’s In the Mood was lifted from an earlier piece by Wingy Manone called Tar Paper Stomp. You can listen to both of them here.
Did Coldplay rip-off Joe Satriani for his hit song “Viva la Vida”? You be the judge.
(Originally Posted by cgg419:
All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople
21 Guns - Green Day
Dare If You Dare - Stone Temple Pilots
The chorus is very close in all three, and the verses from the STP song are similar to Mott The Hoople as well.)
Oh yeah, and ELO’s “Telephone Line” too.
Yeah, that’s one of those I throw in the coincidence/not-a-rip-off pile. That whole controversy seemed ridiculous to me.
I think what you meant to say “they’re fighting over claiming ownership of that piece of crap/those pieces of crap?”
Daryl Hall “paid homage” twice on Big Bam Boom. I guess he was tired of getting plagiarized himself.
Hey DJ - World’s Famous Supreme Team
Method of Modern Love - Hall & Oates
**White Lines **- Grandmaster Flash
Dance On Your Knees - Hall & Oates
I meant to post last time this came up. Two songs that seem to be impossible to find in entirety = in their album form = anywhere on the interwebs, but which bear a remarkable resemblance to one another, are:
Bob Dylan (+ The Band) - Wedding Song
Elvis Costello - Little Palaces
25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago
Brain Stew/Jaded - Green Day
Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I never really caught this until both songs came up back-to-back in the shuffle on my iPod:
Accept’s “Flash Rockin’ Man” (1982)
Iron Maiden’s “2 Minutes to Midnight” (1984)
Same key and everything!
There’s an Allman Brothers connection there, but not the one you think: the instrumentation in Loser is sampled from Johnny Jenkins’ cover of I Walk on Gilded Splinters (original by Dr. John). That song was originally recorded for a Duane Allman solo album, but the project was abandoned when the Allman Brothers Band was formed. Jenkins used some of those tracks for an album of his own (with his own vocals). So when you hear Loser, you’re hearing Duane Allman on dobro and Butch Trucks and Jaimoe on drums. All of that came before Midnight Rider - I think they’re both in D and I can see the resemblance, but to me, they’re not much alike.
I’ve got you ALL beat.
Justin Bieber’s new Xmas single (yes, he released a Christmas single in October :rolleyes: ) and Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” are EXACTLY the same song. IDENTICAL.
Bieber: Justin Bieber - Mistletoe (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Mraz: Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (Official Video) [4K] - YouTube
I’d only heard “I’m Yours” one time in my entire life (on “The Sing-off”) and I recognized it instantly.
I’ve always thought the opening of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” was pretty much the opening of “Pinball Wizard.” That’s pretty much where the similarity ends though.