One
can only imagine that in the scheme of pop music, it’s impossible
not to end up ripping another band off in some capacity, either
intentionally or unintentionally. After all, there are only so many
chords you can string together, right? But every once in a great
while you’ll hear a song that sounds a bit too close to a
track on some obscure old compilation, and you have to wonder if
some hot new band isn’t riding on the coattails of some long-dead
underground act, hoping no one will notice. Any music enthusiast
can easily rattle off a conspiracy theory or two about one of their
old favorites being shamelessly pilfered from, but here’s
a list of four of the most infamous ones.
Elastica’s
“The Connection” vs. Wire’s “Three Girl
Rhumba”
The early ‘90s Brit-pop band Elastica notoriously pilfered
gazillions of riffs from late ‘70s/early ‘80s punk and
post-punk bands, but “The Connection” was their most
popular track. But on track three copy of Wire’s Pink Flag,
you will recognize a lone, crunchy guitar: “DUN. Duh-DUNT-DUNT.
DUN. Duh-DUNT-DUNT. DUN. Duh-DUNT-DUNT.” Your brain will then
superimpose the familiar synthesized “WEE-errr WEE-errr”
of Elastica’s track. But there is no synthesized lead, only
Colin Newman suggesting that you “think of a numbuh.”
The Wire song is a helluva lot better, but lacks the charming chorus
of “The Connection,” the one that everyone tries to
sing along with but no one really knows the words to. Or maybe that’s
just me. There was some legal action taken by Wire camp, and an
out-of-court settlement.
Nirvana’s
“Come As You Are” vs. Killing Joke’s “Eighties”
Music nerds who came of age in the early-mid ‘90s had no idea
that Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” one of the many
anthems that brought “non-conformity” to the malls,
was a rip-off. In the mid-‘80s, post-punk superstars Killing
Joke released Night Time, which included the memorable track “Eighties.”
The driving riff of “Come As You Are” reworks that track.
Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman thought so too, and he was pissed—but
after a few years in a bunker in Iceland waiting for the end of
the world, he chilled out. Nirvana’s Dave Grohl started hanging
out with ex-members of Sunny Day Real Estate and fighting “Foo.”
In 2003 they put their differences aside, and Grohl started drumming
for a new Killing Joke, performing on The Death and Resurrection
Show, which is absolutely terrible. (And I really love Killing Joke.)
Led
Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” vs. Spirit’s
“Taurus”
That’s right, the laudable gods of British Rock, the progenitors
of arena heavy metal, the guys who make our tight pants look like
JNCOs, did a little creative appropriation. Spirit, a late ‘60s
California acid band who toured with Zeppelin in 1968 and ‘69,
released a self-titled album featuring not only their hit “Fresh
Garbage,” a song that my dad has been known to cite as one
of the great unsung classics of the era, but the spacey track “Taurus.”
This album came out a solid three years before Led Zeppelin IV,
which features the quintessential rock ballad “Stairway To
Heaven.” It’s no surprise that Stairway was played backwards
by youth in the early ‘70s, who heard satanic messages and
subsequently began slaughtering their neighbors. What is surprising,
though, is that the intro to “Taurus” and the intro
to “Stairway” use the same basic guitar melody. Jimmy
Page must have been taking some notes on tour, and the rest is rock
n’ roll rip-off history.
Huey
Lewis And The News’ “I Want A New Drug” vs. Ray
Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters”
Huey Lewis claimed on a VH1 Behind The Music episode that he was
approached to do song for Ghostbusters, wouldn’t do it, and
was subsequently horrified to find a track by Ray Parker Jr. that
sounded similar to “I Want A New Drug” released as the
Ghostbusters theme. Who ya gonna call? Lawyers, of course. A VH1.com
news article from 2001 states that in the wake of the episode, Parker
motioned to sue the pants off of Lewis for spreading questionably
accurate ‘news,’ as well as breaching a 1995 legal agreement
that ruled public discussion of the case a big no-no. You can decide
for yourself how similar the songs actually are, but one question
remains: Was anyone besides Huey, Ray and their respective lawyers
particularly concerned? A2P
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