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....

The resemblance of the chorus of Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" to part of the guitar solo in "Sympathy for the Devil" has always annoyed me greatly.

― ma dmac's fury road (PBKR), Saturday, December 11, 2021 9:13 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh snap

never noticed this before but it's clear as day

Dierks Bentley's "Drunk on a Plane" sounds a lot like countrified New Radicals "You Get What You Give"

Rewatched Michael Mann's "Thief," and it ends with this track by someone named Craig Safan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cDz6FW62E

1981 movie, moody scene, could it be more obvious that Mann must have given him "Comfortably Numb" as a temp track suggestion?

when I first watched that with my girlfriend I actually thought it was a synth version of Comfortably Numb, and didn't realize until after it was supposed to be a diff song

I saw Thief recently, and I guess I assumed that this was Tangerine Dream doing a Floyd pastiche (not for the first time).

Moon Taxi "Hometown Heroes" sounds like "Team" by Lorde.

The first line of Darlings by Susanne Sundfør sounds exactly like the first line of Razzle Dazzle Rose by Camera Obscura.

Guitar solo in Big Log sounds like the melody from Happy Together.

The first line of Darlings by Susanne Sundfør sounds exactly like the first line of Razzle Dazzle Rose by Camera Obscura.

the intro riff from slayer's "seasons in the abyss" sounds like "mo bamba"

close your eyes
look deep in your soul
I got hoeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss
calling a young ******'s phone

Deftones 'Be Quiet And Drive' sounds like 'Monitor' by Siouxie And The Banshees.

Parts of Robert Wyatt's "Heaps of Sheeps" sound a lot like Blondie's "Heart of Glass"

I also hear a bit of "Shame, Shame, Shame" by Shirley & Company in there

gaelle - repetition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RxOTsUyKtk
janet - empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9rIjjGmJhM

pointer sisters - "slow hand"
todd rundgren - "real man"

I watched this Slow Hand video, so now it's your turn too: https://vimeo.com/300406625

New Riders of the Purple Sage's "Kick in the Head" sounds like "Polythene Pam". Like, a lot.

Haha, damn.

Not exact match, but LCD Soundsystem's "Someone Great" sounds a bit like New Order's "The Village".

also not exact but the beginning of Lady with the Spinning Head (UV1) by U2 sounds like Everyday Should Be A Holiday by the Dandy Warhols

Animal Collective - Prester John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5iJ9wt4paY

Eloy - Horizons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ocq15y7ajw

The basslines for "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" and "Have You Seen the Rain" are similar no?? For decades now I'd think there was some other version of Dock that I'd heard before the real one, cause my brain was finishing the pattern in a different way then the song actually goes. Eventually I thought nah it must instead be a deja vú type self-recursion false memory. But I've heard both songs in the past week (which prob has never occurred) and pretty sure that's the link my brain was making all these years.

Violent Femmes, "Blister in the Sun"

The Shadows, "Little 'B'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1GcHOJGGvo

... a track which renders Ginger Baker's entire career pointless.

Only recently found out that the reason Men in Black and Fastlove sound fairly similar is that they both sample Patrice Rushen's Forget Me Nots

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

I may be the last one to know about this intro getting lifted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqp2h65BAs8

Has this one been done before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsMdy91B5CA

...sounds like "Should I Stay or Should I Go"

Lou Reed's Charley's Girl sounds like John Lennon's Bring on the Lucie

― ewoods, Sunday, April 3, 2016 11:06 AM (five years ago)

I don't know that Lennon song – but I realized today that "Charley's Girl" kinda sounds like "Franklin's Tower" by the Grateful Dead

The Primitives - Lead Me Astray (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhUaNYwLi88

Even As We Speak - Falling Down the Stairs (1993)

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

This may be a stretch – but the Lou Reed song "Ennui" (from Sally Can't Dance) may sort of be a distant cousin to "Like a Rolling Stone"?

Interesting suggestion! "Like a Rolling Stone" was originally done in waltz-time as well, "Ennui" might well have been vaguely inspired by it structurally and harmonically.

Lou Reed's Charley's Girl sounds like John Lennon's Bring on the Lucie
― ewoods, Sunday, April 3, 2016 11:06 AM (five years ago)

I don't know that Lennon song – but I realized today that "Charley's Girl" kinda sounds like "Franklin's Tower" by the Grateful Dead
― Please don’t take / My time change away (morrisp), Thursday, March 31, 2022 6:29 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's a whole thread about that chord progression, but none of those songs were mentioned:

Songs with the Baba O'Riley Chord Progression

...although "Franklin's Tower" might just be a I - IV progression.

Oh, cool – I didn't realize that was the "Baba O'Riley Chord Progression."

i always think of it as the "you ain't seen nothing yet" progression

"Charley's Girl" kinda sounds like "Franklin's Tower"

... and both were arguably rewrites of "Walk On the Wild Side".

Holly came from Miami F-l-a
If you get confused, listen to the music play

Holy shit!:

The main riff of "Franklin's Tower" was partly inspired by the chorus of Lou Reed's 1973 hit "Walk on the Wild Side."[6]

[6]Browne, David (26 April 2016). "So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead". Da Capo Press – via Google Books.

Strings in Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" sound a lot like Peter Murphy's "Cuts You Up"

Yes, and both songs revolve around a IV - V - vi progression.

"Low Season" by Bob Mould takes its verse melody and chord progression from "Rocket Man".

the teenagers “why do fools fall in love”
the teenagers “who can explain”

Brian Jonestown Massacre, Take It from the Man!

Straight Up and Down - Waiting for the Man + vocal melody from For What It's Worth (e.g., "what a field day for the heat")

Monkey Puzzle - everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey (in vox at beginning) + the chorus vocals of Nirvana's About a Girl (e.g., "I can't see you every night, free")

Mary Please - Hey Joe

Caress - The Last Time

Who? is a kinks song, i think? i can't put my finger on that one, maybe someone can help.

david bowie i love you since i was six - space oddity

just about every song reminds me more than a little of somethin

monkey puzzle also has the cowbell from the beatles song

"The Wild Wild West" TV series Main Theme
"Happy Jack" by The Who

Both repeat the same two-note bass line leading into similar guitar figures.

Today I heard a song in the wild that was new to me (I had to Shazam it): "Why Do I Lie?" by Luscious Jackson. I kept thinking what does this song remind me of. Finally I realized the answer was "Fantasy" by Earth, Wind & Fire.

Youtube commenters are calling it out too!

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

“Garden Party” sounds like “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.”

The Stone Canyon Band covered the latter and there is even a Dylan quote in the former, but I never noticed this until today.

listening to "Trash" by Suede yesterday, i noticed a similarity to Morrissey's "First Of The Gang To Die"

Who? is a kinks song, i think? i can't put my finger on that one, maybe someone can help.

Status Quo, "Pictures of Matchstick Men"?