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Stuff that bands borrowed from other bands.

The lead singer of Offspring once announced their new album title as Chinese Democracy, declaring something along the lines of "Axl stole my hair, so i'm stealing his album" :lol:

The Verve borrowed the opening and hook of their brilliant Bittersweet Symphony from the Stones. Of course it was clearly a tribute, not a ripoff, but that didn't stop the wanker Stones from sueing them, leading to Ashcroft's breakdown and the demise of the band.

To make things worse, the sample wasn't even from a Stones Record, it was from an orchestral tribute to the Stones, and was a 10 second loop and they HAD a license to use it, but those pricks successfully argued that they had used "too much" of it, (10 seconds?!?!?!) and took all the bands profits and had the songwriting credits for the entire track attributed to them.

At that point i lost what little respect I had for them, anyone who would disrespect the artform of music in this way by sueing a band for drawing inspiration from them is unworthy of respect as a musician. When he lost the songwriting credits to the track Ashcroft remarked "This is the best song [Mick] Jagger and [Keith] Richards have written in 20 years." And he was right.

Anyway, yeah, fuck Jagger. The only interesting thing about him is the fact that the Hells Angels tried to kill him. His music is bland, he is a dick, and he hasn't written anything of any worth in years now.
 
Tribute by Tenacious D uses the final riff of Led Zepp's Stairway to Heaven. Thus indicating that "the best song in the world" is in fact Stairway.

Neat-O!
 
Pingfah said:
The lead singer of Offspring once announced their new album title as Chinese Democracy, declaring something along the lines of "Axl stole my hair, so i'm stealing his album" :lol:

The Verve borrowed the opening and hook of their brilliant Bittersweet Symphony from the Stones. Of course it was clearly a tribute, not a ripoff, but that didn't stop the wanker Stones from sueing them, leading to Ashcroft's breakdown and the demise of the band.

To make things worse, the sample wasn't even from a Stones Record, it was from an orchestral tribute to the Stones, and was a 10 second loop and they HAD a license to use it, but those pricks successfully argued that they had used "too much" of it, (10 seconds?!?!?!) and took all the bands profits and had the songwriting credits for the entire track attributed to them.

At that point i lost what little respect I had for them, anyone who would disrespect the artform of music in this way by sueing a band for drawing inspiration from them is unworthy of respect as a musician. When he lost the songwriting credits to the track Ashcroft remarked "This is the best song [Mick] Jagger and [Keith] Richards have written in 20 years." And he was right.

Anyway, yeah, fuck Jagger. The only interesting thing about him is the fact that the Hells Angels tried to kill him. His music is bland, he is a dick, and he hasn't written anything of any worth in years now.
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Yep, that was not a nice thing that was done, there. It's not as if Mick and the boys are in the poor house, is it? George Harrison didn't sue The Jam for lifting "Taxman" lock, stock and barrel for "Start". But then again he was on the receiving end of a plagarism suit for "My Sweet Lord", so he knew how that felt.
 
Pingfah said:
To make things worse, the sample wasn't even from a Stones Record, it was from an orchestral tribute to the Stones, and was a 10 second loop and they HAD a license to use it, but those pricks successfully argued that they had used "too much" of it, (10 seconds?!?!?!) and took all the bands profits and had the songwriting credits for the entire track attributed to them.
Click to expand...

It was an orchestra cover of "The Last Time" which was written by the stones. To be fair if you ever listened to it the sample was used over and over again in Bitter Sweet Symphony. Not that I agree with handing all the credit over to the Stones. I think it should be 50/50.

Here have a listen.
At that point i lost what little respect I had for them, anyone who would disrespect the artform of music in this way by sueing a band for drawing inspiration from them is unworthy of respect as a musician. When he lost the songwriting credits to the track Ashcroft remarked "This is the best song [Mick] Jagger and [Keith] Richards have written in 20 years." And he was right.
Click to expand...

AFAIK Jagger and Richards had nothing to do with the lawsuit. It was mainly the fault of the label executive Allen Klein. If you want to shove a pole up anyone's ass for ruining the Verve then it should be that greedy prick.
 
Yeah, I agree that the orchestral bit formed the hook of the song, however if you hear him perform it on an acoustic you realise that there is a huge amount to the song, and that the strings are actually only incidental to the song as a whole.

No way do I think it should be 50/50, that is giving the Stones far too much credit. That is one 10 second loop of their music, Ashcroft poured his heart and soul into the rest of the song. I mean Ashcroft doesn't even have a credit on it now, that's a joke considering he wrote the lyrics as well. And even more ridiculous considering they had an agreement to use it and split it 50/50 in the first place.

I did not realise that about the record company however. The Verve are back together apparently though, with an album out later this year, which is good news.
 
Daedalus12 said:
At that point i lost what little respect I had for them, anyone who would disrespect the artform of music in this way by sueing a band for drawing inspiration from them is unworthy of respect as a musician. When he lost the songwriting credits to the track Ashcroft remarked "This is the best song [Mick] Jagger and [Keith] Richards have written in 20 years." And he was right.
Click to expand...
AFAIK Jagger and Richards had nothing to do with the lawsuit. It was mainly the fault of the label executive Allen Klein. If you want to shove a pole up anyone's ass for ruining the Verve then it should be that greedy prick.
Click to expand...

Tangentially related, but when the Stones recorded "Has Anybody Seen My Baby", they realised after recording it that the melody sounded a little bit like "Constant Craving", and so, unprompted, gave k.d. lang a sangwriting credit for it. That always impressed me.
 
Pingfah said:
Yeah, I agree that the orchestral bit formed the hook of the song, however if you hear him perform it on an acoustic you realise that there is a huge amount to the song, and that the strings are actually only incidental to the song as a whole.
Click to expand...

Right, but the original single, the song that sold the records, the only song the mainstream public paid any attention to, THAT song featured that loop as the dominant piece of music for the entire song.
 
Nirvana "borrowed" the riff for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Boston's "More Than A Feeling".

And black-metal bands borrowed their corpsepaint make-up from Kiss.
 
FordSVT said:
Pingfah said:
Yeah, I agree that the orchestral bit formed the hook of the song, however if you hear him perform it on an acoustic you realise that there is a huge amount to the song, and that the strings are actually only incidental to the song as a whole.
Click to expand...

Right, but the original single, the song that sold the records, the only song the mainstream public paid any attention to, THAT song featured that loop as the dominant piece of music for the entire song.
Click to expand...

Just because it is the most prominent thing doesn't make it the most important thing, its was still only a 10 second loop. My point is, that if you remove it from the song, the song is still the same song, it still has a massive impact. The orchestral loop is decoration on top of another beautiful piece of music. Therefore it is not the most important part of the song, and not deserving of 50/50 royalties. Definitely not 100% royalties.

You need to understand the song writing process somewhat to understand just how much effort that track took to create besides that loop. Looping a 10 second piece of music is no effort at all and doesn't really constitute a great deal of the creative work that went into it and is giving the Stones a large amount of credit that they don't deserve. There was a whole lot of original instrumentation, lyrics, melodies etc etc in the Verve track that are absolutely nothing to do with the original track. To argue that the sample constitutes anything like 50% of the track is simply wrong IMO.
 
^Having written a few crappy songs in my life I can agree with you on that. The whole Verve Bittersweet Symphony story is one of those moments in music that left a bad taste in my mouth. The way they were screwed out of the song was an insult.
 
Neeka Keet said:
^Having written a few crappy songs in my life I can agree with you on that. The whole Verve Bittersweet Symphony story is one of those moments in music that left a bad taste in my mouth. The way they were screwed out of the song was an insult.
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What's even worse is that it isn't even a piece of Stones music at all.

Here is the Stones version of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRRCCx-UTMc&feature=related

Spot the riff, that's right, it's not there!

The riff only appears on the orchestral interpretation of the song, which was produced under license and was not actually written or arranged by either Jagger or Richards. :guffaw:

AND the main peaking violins that forms a crucial part of the hook was added by Ashcroft and is not part of the original sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6piRDlH8b8

Thanks to Daedelus12 for that second link.
 
Cobain did acknowledge it's similarity. He called it a "clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff" in a rolling stone interview.

The rhythm of it is very similar, thats for sure.
 
Yah, I don't think he actively knocked it off. He was just acknowledging that it was in a similar vein.
 
Pingfah said:
Neeka Keet said:
^Having written a few crappy songs in my life I can agree with you on that. The whole Verve Bittersweet Symphony story is one of those moments in music that left a bad taste in my mouth. The way they were screwed out of the song was an insult.
Click to expand...

What's even worse is that it isn't even a piece of Stones music at all.

Here is the Stones version of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRRCCx-UTMc&feature=related

Spot the riff, that's right, it's not there!
Click to expand...

Klein just wanted $$ from the hit song so it doesn't matter who in the Stones camp gets the authorship. If I recalled correctly after the 1997 lawsuit Oldham who did the orchestra re-arrangement popped back up and filed his own lawsuit against Klein for not paying part of the royalties back to him. :lol:


AND the main peaking violins that forms a crucial part of the hook was added by Ashcroft and is not part of the original sample.
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Sure he added his own riffs and other stuff including the lyrics but the main hook of that song for me was the 10 second sample.
 
Come to think of it, this is sort of like that time when that one John Fogerty dude was sued for ripping off CCR!


Oh... Wait...
 
Pingfah said:
Cobain did acknowledge it's similarity. He called it a "clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff" in a rolling stone interview.

The rhythm of it is very similar, thats for sure.
Click to expand...

So there. :p

Whatever appears on the page, the similarities are obvious to the ear.

I first noticed it in a pizza restaurant. "More Than a Feeling" came on, and I stopped, listened, and said "Wtf? That sounds like..."

Next people will be saying, "dude, black metal totally did not rip off Kiss's make-up! The guys from Kiss had like, stars and cat-faces. Black metal bands are all evil! It's not the same thing at all!"
 
Hmm, drugs, groupies, a spare drum stick, Carly Simon; I'm sure there are a few more, but they're not immediately coming to mind at the moment.
 
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