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It doesn’t get any more blatant than this. Reportedly the Beach Boys management handed over the copyright, as you would. Chuck was still pee’d off, as he regularly was with white artists who stole his music and guitar riffs. By the way, it, the surfer version, was No1 in 63.
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When two songs are so completely similar, why not just mix them together?
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Speaking of Green day ripping off wow
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Love his stuff, but made a career out of it just quietly…
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The difficulty lies when 2 artists you admire and follow, in this case Keith Jarrett and Steely Dan, have a copyright issue. Personally reckon this is one of Steely Dan’s best tracks but as a Jarrett apostle the hackles on my neck rose up when I first heard it. The good news was Jarrett made a mint out of the subsequent litigation, which helped to fund his incredible innovative oeuvre. Worth noting this all happened before ECM’s ground breaking Koln release in 75. Still love both pieces though.
PS Steely Dan did have form in this area. The opening of “Ricky don’t lose this number” owes so much to the great Horace Silver’s classic “Song for my Father” they belatedly added him to the writing credits.
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He did write about 13 different styles of music with 7 bands, under 9 different names… if you write anything even remotely funky you’re going to step on his toes.
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And let’s not pretend that Prince invented that sound.
Perfected it, maybe.
Woke up about half an hour ago and thought, man…I should have about ten of these.
What I’ve got right now is this, which is not about a song but just a musical phrase which is eerily similar.
I’m sure there’s no copying involved, but I feel like you could swap those three seconds or so and no-one would notice.
My wife often plays Bruno Mars in the car. That “Locked Out Of Heaven” song has big Sting/Police vibes, and now I look it up I see there’s been plenty written about it.
There’s a song by that boring prick Ed Sheeran (don’t ask me which one, and I CBF looking it up) that I’d hear in the car every so often and sing the words of Tracy Chapman’s Baby Can I Hold You Tonight over. It’s a blatant steal.
It’s been noticed and plenty’s been written about it too.
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Channeling Van Morrison (and doing a pretty respectable job!)
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Here’s a couple
Living on a prayer and Heaven is a place on earth
They are so close that they have the same signature bass lick. However both were written by Desmond child.
Dani California - Rhcp
Last dance with Mary Jane- Tom Petty.
Rhcp completely ripped off the melody and chord structure.
You can’t copyright a chord structure. But the melody is identical
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The Offspring - Why don’t you get a job
The Beatles - Ob-la-di ob-la-da
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CCR actually sued the Hollies over this one- but didn’t get the chocolates. Fogarty felt it was a little too close to “Green RIver” for his liking…
Couple of bands/lead singers that certainly took some “inspriation” from Eddie Vedder
I’d go one step further and say they’ve just poached the whole “New Order” vibe full stop…
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And here is the gran-daddy of all soundalikes…
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Elastica were infamous for this;
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