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| ART IS EITHER PLAGIARISM OR REVOLUTION ... "OR BOTH" Justine Frischmann of Elastica |
When I wrote about Chris Spedding's band Sharks for SteveShark's blog, I learned that the Clash may have taken a bite from "Sophistication".
Killing Joke's "Eighties" has been cited as the inspiration for "Come As You Are", but the bassline first appeared in The Damned's "Life Goes On". It may seem like I'm picking on Killing Joke (as "Change" is also here). I love KJ, and the late Geordie Walker will get a Gnarly Guitarists feature one of these days.
One frequently cited example is "Dani California" ripping off "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Have the people pointing fingers never heard The Jayhawks' "Waiting For The Sun"? Benmont Tench even played on it!
Two of the soundalikes are similar arrangements of cover songs. Trouser Press wrote that the Blood Oranges' version of “High On A Mountaintop” was "so authoritative that Nashville’s own Marty Stuart lifted it whole for his hit version." And I learned from Trouser Press that Alison Statton (ex-Young Marble Giants) recorded an acoustic "Bizarre Love Triangle" with Ian Devine (ex-Ludus) several years before Frente's alt-rock hit.
Jimmy Ryan of the Blood Oranges sent a nice email after I posted a compilation of his bandmate Mark Spencer's guitar work. I asked Jimmy about Marty Stuart copying their "Mountaintop" arrangement. He answered politely that at least the songwriter (Ola Belle Reed) got some royalties from Marty's record.
Many instances of "creative borrowing" by The Fall have been documented by their fans, none more brazen than "Athlete Cured". As bassist Steve Hanley wrote in The Big Midweek: "here's Mark insisting that we use the (Spinal Tap) riff, note-for-note, exactly the same, not altered in the slightest by key changes, time changes, chord changes or any other sort of disguise...". Notebooks out, plagiarists!
It's been said that Brix Smith based the riff for The Fall's "2x4" (and her name) on "Guns of Brixton" -- and that Paul Simonon got the Brixton bassline from "Egyptian Reggae", which in turn was lifted by Jonathan Richman from Johnny Clarke. None but the listener shall make the judgement!
LINK: https://tinyurl.com/plagiaristica
ReplyDeletePlease share other examples of soundalike songs here in the comments!
Righteous Bros' "Little Latin Lupe Lu" from 1963, and the Clash's "Should I stay or should I go?".
ReplyDeleteNice one! But does "Little Latin Lupe Lu" sound like "Sophistication" by Sharks?
DeleteSee what you think: https://youtu.be/yJLmFOrLrro?si=VObPUbzsNQs_bOnj
It seems to me that aspects of both the RB and the Sharks can be found in the Clash's. Way back when, when my grandma still had a 'tache, we (in our band) ended our shows often with an Amalgamation of the Nations. We used a deformation of Das Deutschland Lied (Nashville, Nashville Uber Alles) played in the God Save The Queen melody but sung on The Stars and Stripes melody. Ashtrays, glasses and all sorts were thrown. We never ever had to come back for encores
ReplyDeleteMy friend, your story brings back warm childhood memories of singing "Hava Nagila" to the tune of "Do They Know It's Christmas". Or maybe it was the other way around. I lost a lot of memories while I was in a coma after a tragic thumb-twiddling accident.
DeleteI must admit that I am troubled (and somewhat aroused) by thoughts of your grandma's mustache. How long was it? Could she tie it in a knot? Could she tie it in a bow?
Nice one, thanks Jonder! My contribution is embarrassing since I always used to be proud of the one of the first international Dutch rock hits: Venus by Shocking Blue...
ReplyDeleteMuch later I found out that the music was wholesale 'borrowed' from The Big Three's Banjo Song (1963) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RQ8eHVDXEk
Wow, I had no idea! "The Banjo Song" uses the lyrics from "Oh Susanna", which in turn were "borrowed" by Stephen Foster from another song, "The Rose of Alabama". The music goes around and around...
DeleteMy wife heard the "Peter Gunn" theme in "The Banjo Song", which made me think of the opening riff to "Brand New Cadillac".
DeleteJon: This is the kind of excellent work the internet has come to expect from you! - Stinky
ReplyDeleteJohn's Children's 'Let Me Know' and 'The Clash's 'Should I stay...' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKcobaElkmM
ReplyDeleteThe Clash's '1977' borrows a riff from The Kinks.
That song by Johns Children is really close! Comments on the video also mention "Little Latin Lupe Lu", "High Time Baby" by The Spencer Davis Group, "Killer Joe" by The Kingsmen, and "something maybe The Sonics did" (could it be "The Witch"?). I guess anything with the same 2 chord pattern might qualify...
Delete"1977" is similar to "All Day And All Of The Night" with the exception of one chord where Mick goes down instead of up...
The Two Dollar Pistols song "There Goes My Baby" sounds like "Having An Average Weekend" by Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. The theme song for The Kids In The Hall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy0KhGTKWzo
ReplyDeleteDeep Purple's "Lazy" sounds like Green Onions by Booker T. & the M.G.'s
ReplyDeleteHere's another one but It's a little out there. Junior Watson's "Wolf Pack" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London"
DeleteOne more - Phosphoresent - The Quotidian Beasts and Chris Isaak's Wicked Game
DeleteI thought that "Copenhagen" by Lucinda Williams sounded like "Wicked Game" -- but she doesn't go into the falsetto part like Phosphorescent! Thanks for that one.
DeleteYou can throw Stephen Stills' 'Rock & Roll Times' from 1970 into the mix of songs that 'inspired' the Clash too. Anon
ReplyDeleteChuck Berry's song 'Promised Land" uses melody of 'Wabash Cannonball" but when my little brother's band KIND did the cover in a Grateful Dead kind of way it sounds like "One More Saturday Night" written by Bob Weir one his solo record "Ace" from 1972 and became a big song in the Grateful Dead. Weir is credited with writing "One More Saturday Night", although there is evidence that the song was originally written with Robert Hunter, with different lyrics. Weir wanted to call his version "US Blues", but Hunter did not agree and disavowed himself of the song.[1] Hunter later wrote a song with that title for the Dead's 1974 album From the Mars Hotel.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the studio version of "One More Saturday Night" featured on Ace is credited as a Bob Weir solo recording, the song – like the entire album – featured the other members of the Dead acting as Weir's backing group.
Why is New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle here twice with a soft cover? Making an acoustic cover of a song doesn't ring my bell. Maybe it is exceptional that a song has been done twice by different artists in a short period of time with a similar setting. All through the 20th century we heard older songs being re-discovered. A soft Blueberry Hill being pumped up, a wild Tutti Frutti toned down, House of the Rising Sun being upgraded to whatever fad there was. Love Will Tear Us Apart brutally savaged by The Swans, Jolene killed by The White Stripes. That list of semi-original reworks is endless and, uninspired.
ReplyDeleteApart from this moan, I found out a few jewels I would otherwise not consider.
Why is it there? Because the Frente version was an alt-rock radio hit, but the idea for an acoustic cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle" had already been done. You could argue that the arrangement was plagiarized, in the same way that Marty Stuart copied the Blood Oranges' electric country-rock arrangement of “High On A Mountaintop”. I once took a class from a music professor who occasionally served as an expert witness in musical plagiarism cases, and he said that it was very hard to prove. I'm not accusing any of the artists on this compilation of plagiarism -- just pointing out interesting similarities, some of which seem more than coincidental. It's certainly possible for more than one person to independently come up with the same idea, especially in a relatively simple musical format like rock. One of the reasons that "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" sounds like a number of other songs is that it's essentially just a two chord riff.
DeleteI agree with Richard's larger point: it becomes tiresome to hear rock songs played as acoustic ballads ("Mad World" is another example, although I like that one better than the original). In the same vein, it quickly became a cliche to do a fast & loud "punk" version of an older song (e.g., Sid singing "My Way" or The Dickies doing "The Sound Of Silence" -- nothing against The Dickies, just that it was done to death by other bands).
My favorite covers are the ones that transform the original or bring out a different aspect of the song that I didn't "hear" in it before. Siouxsie's version of "Helter Skelter" and Husker Du's "Eight Miles High" come to mind as transformative (rather than just louder, cruder and/or faster).
First of all, thanks for the compilation. I love this kind of thing and am thrilled to encounter all these new-to-me exhibits, at least some of which I will be sure to start pontificating about just as soon as I'm given half a chance.
DeleteNow, I feel a bit apprehensive about the following examples, as one of them probably fits into the "been in every listlcle on the subject" category that you're hoping to avoid, and the other is probably just lame. But the reference to John's Children immediately reminded me of two Marc Bolan, um, excursions that I'd like to mention. Bolan's "I Love to Boogie" is widely considered to be a Rip Off (note the subtly unobtrusive T. Rex allusion there) of "Teenage Boogie" by Webb Pierce. And his "Cat Black" has always seemed to me -- though I could easily be wrong about this -- suspiciously reminiscent of the old rockaballad "Red Cadillac and a Black Mustache," first recorded and released in 1957 by Bob Luman, but subsequently covered by craploads of people, including Warren Smith and even Bob Dylan. Of course, more or less as you [Jonder] have observed in connection with "Should I Stay Or Should I Go," it's always possible to mistake what is in reality only a musical cliche for what constitutes an instance of musical plagiarism. So the main reason for which I could so easily be wrong about "Cat Black" is that the melody itself isn't much more than a sort of highlighting of each tonic note from within a particular four-chord progression that everybody knows from about 17 billion doo-wop songs.
Again, though, I can see that those two Marc Bolan examples might be a bit on the pedestrian side. So, in an effort to make amends, I'm going to offer up another POSSIBLE example, i.e., one which might possibly involve somebody's unimaginatively rehearsing a musical cliche, or else which might possibly involve somebody's doing some creative plagiarizing. I therefore invite any interested parties to head over to the following recording from 1962, pay special attention to what comes in right around 2:00, and decide whether or not there's any connection to a certain ditty that very many of us here are sure to be familiar with from elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkgta61uRJY .
I like when the singer of a cover version is of a different gender than the songwriter, which often reveals nuances I'd missed before. One of my favorite artists JOAN JETT often leaves the gender pronouns where they were--which I've always saw as a very punk rock move. :) - Stinky
ReplyDeleteGood point! Her version of "Crimson and Clover" is a prime example, and a classic cover song.
DeleteOoh must not go there, pixie, fairy girls, playing acoustic guitar, singing from everly brothers to dylan, from nouvelle vague to new order. As a great music lover I must confess that I do not like most music. Tina Turner covering male songs (occasionally overthrowing the lyrics) looked in her sixties trying to be sexy. On the other hand there are some fierce women songwriters (Cynthia Weil) writing for men.
DeleteAnd Joan Jett. What I like is that she says FUCK OFF when asked about her private sex life. Very consistently she has keeping all gender questions open, and also in her music she sings both here and there. That is a great positive attitude in a ever more polarising world.
"As a great music lover I must confess that I do not like most music" -- I think I know what you mean. I listen to a lot of music but my tastes are particular. I don't enjoy everything I hear, and dislike most of what's popular these days. Or maybe you meant by writing "great music lover" that you only like great music?
DeleteI try not to be snobbish about it. "Opinions are like assholes" etc. What "the kids" enjoy these days may not move me, but the music that excited me when I was young would probably bore today's youth.
Yes absolutely right. I should not mention great. I consider myself a music lover.
DeleteOn the next subject (Albert Lee) and seeing your writing about next projects, and The Netherlands, has one ever thought of the greatest Dutch guitar player.
Some would say Akkerman, others Muskee, others wouldn't be able to name one, but for me the best is Harry Sacksioni.
re: "Rock and Roll Time" - I think the previous commentator meant the 1975 track by that name recorded by Roger McGuinn, not Stephen Stills (who, as far as I can tell, never recorded a song by that name). Yep, the McGuinn recording sounds uncannily like The Clash, though I suspect it's an unusual coincidence, not an influence. The Clash were very musically open-minded and transparent about their musical influences, and I don't think they ever mentioned "Rock and Roll Time" (or McGuinn, for that matter). You never know, though.
ReplyDeleteLove Reaction by Divine is a Blue Monday rip off. I once read that New Order thought it too funny to sue.
ReplyDeleteDivine would have been considered "degenerate art" under a "New Order". Perhaps she would have been sent to a "Joy Division". Despite that, it sounds like New Order have a better sense of humor (or fewer lawyers) than U2. I need to check out those Dutch guitar players you mentioned, or maybe you can share some of their music with us?
DeleteJan Akkerman was the original guitar player of Focus (remember Hocus Pocus?!), but recorded loads of albums as a solo rock/jazz/fusion artist, a good example can be found here: http://rockonvinyl.blogspot.com/2010/06/jan-akkerman-live-at-montreux-jazz.html
DeleteHarry Sacksioni plays (as far as I know) mainly acoustic guitar and has quite a reputation, perhaps you could call him the Dutch Bert Jansch. Anyway, here you can see a 'battle' between Harry & Jan + some brief intro clips from the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xDB3xU1ErY
Thanks! I've seen Akkerman's name, and I do remember Focus for "Hocus Pocus". Don't think I've encountered the names Sacksioni or Muskee before.
DeleteHarry Muskee was the band leader of Cuby & The Blizzards. He is called the Godfather of Dutch Blues. Here are a few old videos.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h9hwsVh5ug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMj_HnvJKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWCg7v06Les
One of those things with Harry Sacksioni is that he has a nice life, could ask for more, but never needed the extra fuzz that came with it. So he remains a guitar player fairly obscure to the world. Mainly plays on dutch, even mostly dutch-languaged, music. His technique is second to none
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-qYGj7uHKw it is dutch but guitarists will understand when seeing him play bass, chords aand melody
Inspiration, sampling, plagiarism, soundalikes. It is again a subject that I cannot let loose that easily. What happened was, that this weekend the BBC repeated a disco special, and they add some info as subtitles to the show. When Rock Your Baby came along it said John Lennon would loved to have written that, and he was inspired to write Whatever gets U thru the Night, David Bowie was inspired into Young Americans. Abba was inspired to do Dancing Queen. Now YOU have to go through these songs again to find the inspirational likeness.
DeleteIn the few years I was a Acid-House Born-Again-Hippie there was a song by Air Liquide - Stratus Seeking.(Listen and trip) Last week I found Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain (Instrumental) and now I want to know where they both got that sample from.
And if you must, check something else: John Parr - St Elmo's Fire against the later Rob de Nijs - Banger Hart. I find the chorus very similar.
I don't know if this will help you find the source of the sample: https://www.whosampled.com/Cypress-Hill/Insane-in-the-Brain/samples/
DeleteThe website WhoSampled has a couple of listings for Air Liquide, but not "Stratus Static". Your title ("Stratus Seeking") is better than theirs!
Yesterday I was listening to Lucinda Williams' album Blessed. The guitar and drums on one of the songs sounded like "Wicked Game" -- so much so that I could sing along to it with the lyrics and melody to Chris Isaak's famous hit. Which is not to say that I can sing like Chris Isaak. Fortunately I was alone in the car!
Yep, a reply written in haste, sure to fail. If you like my title Stratus Seeking,a good one for A Head In The Clouds (if that makes some sence at all) compilation.
DeleteChris Isaak, he is kind of famous, isn't he. I have one seven inch, Gone Ridin.
I just found this article about the 4 chords which explains a lot and is pretty funny as well: https://www.unilad.com/music/news/axis-of-awesome-4-chord-song-video-464197-20231009
ReplyDelete