songs that sound like other songs

*obligatory post about Elastica/Wire connection*

"Last" by Nine Inch Nails (on the BROKEN e.p.) recalls Queen's "Fight from the Inside" (down to a stolen riff). Trent's a big Queen fan, allegedly.

The first note of Cheap Trick's "Stop This Game" (on ALL SHOOK UP) is a slow fade-in that is purportedly the last note of SGT.PEPPER's.

The Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" ripped off The Jam's "In the City"

("Girl Like You" was Edwyn Collins, who's not shitty)

I hear a slight resemblance between the choruses of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and Starz's "So Young, So Bad." Maybe it's just the chord changes.

I'm sure there are several other "Sweet Leaf" rip-offs that I can;t think of right now.

This is Smoke on the Water: Dun dun DUN, dun dun DUN-DUNN
This is Cat Scratch Fever: Dun dun DUN, dun-dun DUN

And hey, did anyone notice the resemblances between "Ice Ice Baby" and "Under Pressure"?

You're shitting me. :-)

(Sorry. Listening to Sabotage at the moment.)

dsico

(Not listening to Sab right now.)

more terribly, the offspring's "get a job" and "o bla di o bla da" by the beatles have very similar choruses (try singing one over the other sometime, it's horrifying).

Furthermore, for the record: an obvious choice, perhaps, but Pulp's "A Little Soul" and Smokey R. and the M.'s "The Tracks of My Tears".

Other than that, the similarity of the intro to Cast's "Fine Time" and Guns'n'Roses "Paradise City" could be pretty confusing at indie discos in the mid-ninties, just when you're ready to blow the whistle and rock out with Axl, Izzy and Slash you get, "What's it all about? Do you really want to know..."

Shit.

I'm sure that's no accident, given Rick Rubin's appreciation for old school metal.

The Manic Street Preachers' "If You Tolerate This Than Your Children Will Be Next" was alleged to have ripped off the Stranglers' "Duchess," but I find that a bit of a stretch.....and I'm a much bigger fan of the Stranglers than I'll ever be of the Manics.

Then, of course, Nirvana stole the riff from Killing Joke's "Eighties" for "Come as You Are." Little known fact is that my beloved Killing Joke stole that very same riff from the Damned's "Life Goes On" (on the STRAWBERRIES album).

Big Black's "L Dopa" off SONGS ABOUT FUCKING is virtually indistiguishable from Killing Joke's "the Wait".

The Germs' "No God" ripps the opening riff off of Yes' "Roundabout," but that's more willfull desecration rather than theft (despite the fact that guitarist Pat Smear is an unapologetic Yes fan).

Oh, and dancing at Mother to retro-ironic white trash trailer rock last night, I realised that there's a Sloan song which is Foghat's Slow Ride down to a T, but I can't remember which one it is.

Butthole Surfers' "Human Cannibal" is "The Rose" by Bette Middler. Sing along. "Some say love..."; it's eerie.

I'm blanking right now....

Some Funkadelic song - on Cosmic Slop? "March to the Witch's Castle"? sounds like Donald Byrd's version of "Cristo Redentor."

Which is probably the original version, written by Duke Pearson.

It is.

To circle back to the beginning, "Waking Up" also sounds very much like "Sally's Revolution" by Grant McLennan.

Pet Shop Boys "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" ≈ Magnetic Fields "I Have the Moon" ≈ Billy Bragg "Mother of the Bride"

the theme to cheers ("sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name") is a total ripoff of elton john's "border song"

Tangerine Dream's 'Love On A Real Train' is basically a four-minute excerpt from 'Music For 18 Musicians' by Steve Reich, except on electronic rather than acoustic instruments.

The beginning of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturne_in_E_minor,_Op._posth._72_(Chopin) sounds exactly like the beginning of Manhã de Carnaval.

the theme to cheers ("sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name") is a total ripoff of elton john's "border song"

not really hearing it...

listen to the opening piano riff in each song

I hear the similarity there, but "total ripoff" seems extreme... though what do I know, I didn't predict the "Blurred Lines" outcome.

okay "total ripoff" may be a bit hyperbolic but still, they're pretty close!

By the way, to circle back to the Katy Perry case I have been tracking in this thread (to no one's interest): the plaintiff is now appealing to the Ninth Circuit. (As a refresher: the original verdict in his favor was overturned in March.) Given how Led Zeppelin fared before the 9th Circuit recently, the odds may be in favor of Perry et al.

Kid is playing that Nocturne again for her lesson right now.

the main riff of katie pruitt's "expectations" can't help but evoke the theme song from last week tonight with john oliver

just struck by how much "Mary in the Morning" sounds like "Sunday Morning" and it's not just the glockenspiel (although it's probably the glockenspiel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p39E2OUSfQ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qK82JvRY5s

Been listening all day to the fabtrabulously awesome Dare! album by the Human League. What a great album this is! I love discovering great albums. But anyway you can pretty much play “Spot Who Homaged Us/Ripped Us Off” on here. “Darkness” is mid-to-late-80s Depeche Mode. “Love Action” is “The Simple Life” by the Juan Maclean. “Don’t You Want Me” does the flat disaffected electroclash vocal style. The “Hard Times” bassline reminds me of “Somebody That I Used to Know” (though that one’s a bit of a stretch, I admit). And MOST EGREGIOUSLY OF ALL you might as well sing “I’m ready for the shuffle, ready for the deal, ready to let go of the steering wheel” as the opening verse of “Seconds”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR3H8TY3iGg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwtykH7ey_0

brian jonestown massacre - panic in babylon
okay temiz & johnny dyani - doktor / play for me

Work Drugs - Prime

https://youtu.be/TU5HrNEFPeo

Sounds way too much like Roxette’s listen to your heart. I can’t find the credits but I hope they sorted it out.

the Census 2020 commercial uses strings that initially resemble the opening of Forgot About Dre before revealing its really just some neo-Free Design sounding shit

Which imagine dragons song is this again?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=geQ7Xkm_CdE

jolene & forever autumn

Evanescence's new single Wasted on You sounds like Radiohead's 'Creep'. no one listens to Evanescence in 2020.

the first two chords are the same, but not much else

but it's a shit song so

yeah, I guess you're right. the first five seconds of the song are practically a disclaimer that it's gonna be warmed-over glurge straight through, so idk why I was fool enough to keep listening

My wife and I were in Target today; a ringing guitar intro was playing over the PA.
ME: What’s this Strokes rip-off song?
HER: You’re gonna laugh when you realize what it is.
The vocals come in: She was an American girl....
#moded

― i’m still stanning (morrisp), Saturday, July 14, 2018

^Just wanted to follow this up with something even dumber (from today):

*a song plays from my wife’s phone*
Me: Is that Free Design?
Her: What?
Me: The band playing... is it Free Design?
Her: uh, it’s the Carpenters. You’re too hipster for this room, buddy.

Ha wow, also i never noticed that about Tom Petty before

John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" - "But when I see you, darling/It's like we both are falling..."

The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" - "But she looks in my eyes/And makes me realize..."

that's somewhat of a melodic cliche of 50s rock ballads that both of those songs borrow

You'd have to name me something else that uses that exact same sequence of four chords AND has the melody starting on the sixth scale degree, on beat two of the measure, then a seventh to the fifth scale degree, before descending in stepwise motion. Both songs do the exact same thing.

then UP a seventh

This new Bob Dylan song “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You” sounds like that one song from “The Tales of Hoffmann”

xp to tim

the melodies are similar, and the consecutive sevenths are unique, but what both songs are doing are paying harmonic homage to the ballads of their youth.

The Beach Boys example is more complex because it leads into a key change, but that chordal turn (ii IV iii VI) is a nod to early rock ballads like “Don’t Blame Me” by The Everly Brothers and Frankie Valli’s “Alone.” Though the intervals aren’t the same, both melodies also share some similarities with “Be My Baby,” which it reverses the order of the cadences (III VI ii V)

it

my point is, yes those melodies are very similar, likely because they’re both trying to evoke a doo-wop/early rock feel

The Four Seasons' "Alone" was released after "Don't Worry Baby" and "Don't Worry Baby" was written in 1964 (or '63) when Brian Wilson was 21, so I'm not sure how much of a homage to his youth it was.

Oh, I see, it was a cover.

yeah don’t worry baby was released early enough to be a part of that original tradition, not as a homage, though doo-wop/girl group was starting to fall out of vogue

the original shepherd sisters version of alone came out in 1963

nothing comes immediately to mind for me — can anyone point to an example in the music of e.g. the ravens, moonglows, five satins, orioles, duprees, teenagers, etc ?

It occurs to me recently that the rhythmic feel of "Hungry Like the Wolf" owes rather a lot to "Bang a Gong (Get it On)."

i.e., the accent pattern of the rhythm guitar in the verse. (rest) DARK in the CITy, (rest) NIGHT is a WIRE.

I'm pretty sure that Pavement's 'Box Elder' unashamedly referencing the Verlaines 'Death and the Maiden' will have been mentioned upthread. Anyway, here's Stephen Malkmus covering 'Death and Maiden' https://youtu.be/8-GqgN00Kr0
We just need the Verlaines to cover 'Box Elder'to complete the cycle.

Dusseldorf-based Wolfgang Riechmann's "Weltwelt" from 1978.
Dusseldorf-based Kraftwerk's "Metropolis" from 1978.

... at least for the opening third of the Wolfgang Riechmann track that is, thereafter it sounds like:

The Residents, "Diskomo".

I don't know which was released first, Riechmann or Kraftwerk, the Residents is from 1980.

... sorry, I meant, Dusseldorf-based Wolfgang Riechmann's "Silberland" from 1978.

I'm pretty sure that Pavement's 'Box Elder' unashamedly referencing the Verlaines 'Death and the Maiden' will have been mentioned upthread.

I guess it’s been mentioned somewhere – YouTube has the red line indicating that I’ve watched the “Death and the Maiden” video at some point in the past (tho I don’t remember it)! Yeah, it’s clearly the inspiration for “Box Elder.”

frank zappa "the central scrutinizer" (1979) < jethro tull "overseer overture" (1973)

This new Bob Dylan song “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You” sounds like that one song from “The Tales of Hoffmann”

― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, June 20, 2020 7:57 AM (two days ago)

OK, I'm curious on this one. Which song?

The one they use on the Phil Silvers Hamlet episode of Gilligan's Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_nuit,_%C3%B4_nuit_d'amour?wprov=sfti1

”Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" (often referred to as the "Barcarolle") is a piece from The Tales of Hoffmann (1881), Jacques Offenbach's final opera. A duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano, it is considered the most famous barcarolle ever written and described in the Grove Book of Operas as "one of the world's most popular melodies."

Sonic Youth’s “Heather Angel” (1998) mixes the alternating chords from Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” and the dissonance and rhythm of Blonde Redhead’s “Water” (1997)