Other songs that sound like other songs

bermuda

Drummerworld Pro Drummer - Administrator
Staff member
In the spirit of the Blurred Lines thread, what other songs sound like someone else's song, but nobody took it to court?

The classic example for me is "Lies" by The Knickerbockers, which sounded more like The Beatles than The Beatles! I don't recall any litigation about that, despite The Beatles being the hottest property around.

Go!
 
There's the entire ---

Cherry Cherry - Neil Diamond
What I like about you - Romantics
RoCK in the USA - JC Mellencamp

And much much more!
Yours for 3 easy installments of 19.99
 
There is a part in a Marilyn Manson tune "Dissociative" that sounds just like the bridge from "Band on the run". Don't think that ever came to litigation.
 
Cherry Cherry - Neil Diamond
What I like about you - Romantics
RoCK in the USA - JC Mellencamp

That's funny, I play the Romantics & John Cougar songs in the same band and never put that together! (Or Cherry Cherry, which I played in another band...)

Playing those tomorrow night, I'm sure I'll hear them differently now!

Bermuda
 
You also have bands that based their entire look/sound/aesthetic on others. Is that not fair game too?

Some that quickly come to mind.

Oasis = Beatles
Jet = AC/DC
Bulletboys = DLR era Van Halen
 
Born This Way by Lady Gaga and Respect Yourself by Madonna. I think Madonna actually performed a mashup of the two to make a point.

Heart's Barracuda and Led Zep's Achilles Last Stand.

Speaking of Led Zeppelin, half their catalog is plagiarized from little-known bluesmen.
 
That's funny, I play the Romantics & John Cougar songs in the same band and never put that together! (Or Cherry Cherry, which I played in another band...)

My feeling is that they may be "guitar-similar" and "drum-different" in the same manner that Barracuda/Achilles are drum-similar and guitar-different.

The Guitar-pop world is filled with EAD, GCD, DAG songs.

30 years of guitar and 1 year of drums will do that to a gent.
 
Wow. i always thought that "Lies" was actually the Beatles.
 
There was the whole lawsuit over Huey Lewis' "I Want a New Drug" and Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters"

I never would have guessed that those songs were mounted on the same frame. That's what it amounts to. But unlike the Pontiac Trans Am and the Chevy Camaro, these songs to my ear are totally different songs, like a Camaro and a Mustang. Musical borrowing is as old as dirt. I think whoever makes the best (read most popular) version of a given set of chords should "win". And if they are each equally popular, that should be allowed.

Personally I'm not on board with claiming a series of soundwaves so no one is allowed to use them. To me that's like saying no one is allowed to put the words purple and bayou together except me. Puh-lease. Copyrighting a chord sequence amounts to owning that chord sequence, which is rediculous. That's like trying to own air. Air is public domain that everyone is entitled access to. If you remake a song verbatim, OK you owe the writer their due. But if I take elements of just the music part of a song...not the lyric..... and add my own "original" musical elements, including different lyrical content, and a different overall vibe, then it's a clearly different composition than the original in my mind. There are only 12 notes. The original song came from someone else in some form too, as it has from the beginning.

If someone wanted to write a very different story about a seafarers stories with a great big whale, would the Moby Dick people sue? Sure they have whales and ships and oceans in common, but if it were a completely different story line, to me it's fair game. If someone clearly piggybacked on the idea of another, and it became popular, should this person be penalized? Let supply and demand make the rules. If a product is inferior, it won't fare well. If a product touches a nerve with the public, no matter where the idea came from, they deserve the success IMO. Everybody's ideas come from everybody else's eventually anyway. There's very few completely original things being done musically IMO.

Robert Johnson, completely lifted whole songs and put a different set of lyrics to them and he is hailed and revered and his is one of the greatest legends in the music realm. He lifted "Love in Vain" from the song "When the Sun is Sinking Low" (I think I recalled that title correctly)

Howlin Wolf lifted...but modernized...Charley Patton's "Spoonful Blues". And so on and so on. Lawyers man.
 
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There was the whole lawsuit over Huey Lewis' "I Want a New Drug" and Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters"

I never would have guessed that those songs were mounted on the same frame. That's what it amounts to. But unlike the Pontiac Trans Am and the Chevy Camaro, these songs to my ear are totally different songs, like a Camaro and a Mustang. Musical borrowing is as old as dirt. I think whoever makes the best (read most popular) version of a given set of chords should "win". And if they are each equally popular, that should be allowed.

Personally I'm not on board with claiming a series of soundwaves so no one is allowed to use them. To me that's like saying no one is allowed to put the words purple and bayou together except me. Puh-lease. Copyrighting a chord sequence amounts to owning that chord sequence, which is rediculous. That's like trying to own air. Air is public domain that everyone is entitled access to. If you remake a song verbatim, OK you owe the writer their due. But if I take elements of just the music part of a song...not the lyric..... and add my own "original" musical elements, including different lyrical content, and a different overall vibe, then it's a clearly different composition than the original in my mind. There are only 12 notes. The original song came from someone else in some form too, as it has from the beginning.

If someone wanted to write a very different story about a seafarers struggles with a great big whale, would the Moby Dick people sue? Sure they have whales and ships and oceans in common, but if it were a completely different story line, to me it's fair game. If someone clearly piggybacked on the idea of another, and it became popular, should this person be penalized? Let supply and demand make the rules. If a product is inferior, it won't fare well. If a product touches a nerve with the public, no matter where the idea came from, they deserve the success IMO. Everybody's ideas come from everybody else's eventually anyway. There's very few completely original things being done musically IMO.

Robert Johnson, completely lifted whole songs and put a different set of lyrics to them and he is hailed and revered and his is one of the greatest legends in the music realm. He lifted "Love in Vain" from the song "When the Sun is Sinking Low" (I think I recalled that title correctly)

Howlin Wolf lifted...but modernized...Charley Patton's "Spoonful Blues". And so on and so on. Lawyers man.

I think you need to take a closer look at the blurry line between facsimile copying and re-recording. For example if you recorded something, then I used that exact recording to release a record with my handsome face on it, you may have take issue.
 
Born This Way by Lady Gaga and Respect Yourself by Madonna. I think Madonna actually performed a mashup of the two to make a point.

Very good, yes!

2020 sheesh 20
 
Everything by Oasis sounds like another song, but most were ripped directly from the Real People.
 
Beachboys - Surfin USA
Chuck Berry - Everything he ever wrote.

In addition

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Everything he ever wrote
All English and American culture - Almost Everything Thereafter.
 
Cherry Cherry - Neil Diamond
What I like about you - Romantics
RoCK in the USA - JC Mellencamp

That's funny, I play the Romantics & John Cougar songs in the same band and never put that together! (Or Cherry Cherry, which I played in another band...)

Playing those tomorrow night, I'm sure I'll hear them differently now!

Bermuda

My band mashes all three of those songs together in a medley that ends with 3 of us singing the chorus of a different song, all at the same time.
 
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