Songs that sound awfully similar.

The introduction to Gamma Ray's No World Order album, and Ashen Paradise by Heavenly. Although I think they did it on purpose.

Also, Born to the Fight by Waylander, and, er...So What by Pink.

edited 24th Jun '11 6:51:08 AM by SoberIrishman

Self-plagiarism doesn't really count (Bodast was a band Steve Howe was in before Yes), but someone else posted this on facebook and I found it interesting: Listen to the intro of this, then jump to 5:40 of this

edited 25th Jun '11 12:04:37 PM by MikeK

On the other hand, try 2:43 of this video and compare it with 7:28 of this song. It’s been suggested that the Grobschnitt song was an homage/joke. Knowing them, I’d go with the “homage/joke” hypothesis.

edited 25th Jun '11 12:30:13 PM by Bananaquit

edited 12th Jul '11 6:28:39 PM by Psychokiller

I already said this but Party Ghouls from Little Big Planet and Katyusha, a russian folk song.

They both sound the same if you ask me.

Keith Urban's "Somebody Like You" and "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me" are VERY similar.

Brad Paisley also recycles melodies a lot. Compare "Ticks" and "Water", "The World" and "American Saturday Night" or "Online" and "Old Alabama".

I can't believe someone mentioned Coldplay and then didn't bring up their "Viva La Vida" vs. "If I Could Fly" debacle.

Hear for yourself:

Elecman's theme from Mega Man, Journey's "Faithfully," .38 Special's "If I'd Been the One," and R.E.M.'s "All the Right Friends."

Oh, and at the end of Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory" the notes sounded like she was quoting Chris Brown's "With You." Probably pure coincidence, though.

This video. shows game tracks which sound like other music.

Inspired by the Blondie thread: Call Me vs. Children of the Grave

Yeah, the whole Coldplay/Satriani thing was facepalm-worthy. Fuck Coldplay.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun and Layla or is it just me.

Not that I like Coldplay, but to say they ripped off Joe Satriani is pretty fucking arrogant considering this. Hell, you could say Joe ripped off Cat Stevens and it'd make just as much sense.

edited 20th Jul '11 9:12:32 PM by KitsuneInferno

Meh, there are only so many combinations of chords and scales you can write, it's not surprising that some of them get repeated occasionally.

Eh, the Coldplay one still sounds by far the most blatantly similar to my ears - not to mention that it was made by a band that have outright confessed to varying degrees of plagiarism in multiple interviews. Also, Coldplay are the only ones getting any significant recognition for their song, so if any plagiarism at all has taken place there, that means they're still the ones profiting immensely from someone else's work, no matter who originally wrote it.

You could say the same thing about sampling or interpolation. Led Zeppelin were huge plagarists and I don't see anyone looking to lynch them anytime soon. To me, the only difference between homage and theft is whether or not you like the accused artist. And even if Coldplay were to admit that they ripped off "If I Could Fly", it wouldn't matter. To quote a friend of the accused, "So yeah, I sampled your voice; you was usin' it wrong. You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song."

edited 21st Jul '11 9:33:04 AM by KitsuneInferno

Santeria by Sublime and Billionaire by Travie Mccoy and Bruno Mars.

edited 17th Feb '12 5:52:43 PM by lolacat

Well, this thread got necro'd.

Haven't Met You Yet by Michael Buble and the introduction to Kill My Boyfriend BY Natalia Kills.

"Turn Me Loose" by Loverboy and "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by Kim Wilde, and they even have similar subject matter, though the later one is a cover of a Supremes song which doesn't sound as much like the Loverboy song.

Edit: On second thought, this post probably doesn't belong in this thread because they don't sound "awfully similar", just vaguely similar enough for me to connect the two.

edited 20th Feb '12 10:33:55 AM by djbj

"Make 'em laugh, Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh" sounds exactly like "Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown" As far as I recall, lawsuits got flung about over that one.

I believe the writers of Singin In The Rain tried to use the latter but were refused.

And I'm not sure if this one has been mentioned yet but EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. BY. NICKELBACK. It's the same attempts at post-grunge that everyone else has done combined with Chad Kroeger's flat and "trying way too hard to sound like Vedder" voice.

Yeah, Nickelback is just so boring.

Of course, this was making the rounds back around when Nickelback were first getting popular:

If you seek out the originals it becomes apparent that they sped up "Someday" and possibly did some other tampering to get it to work, but still... Unrelated side note: Am I alone in thinking that Chad Kroeger looks a lot like Seth Green in that particular picture?

edited 19th Feb '12 10:20:54 PM by MikeK

It was in 1996 when I first became aware that one musician's songs could be remarkably similar to another musician's songs. This review of Bryan Duncan's album Blue Skies got me thinking. Here's the whole quote:

The opening keyboard chords to "After This Day is Gone" are seemingly lifted from the famous intro to Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"; the title track's guitar shuffle sounds like a Huey Lewis & the News send-up from "This is It," and fans of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will have no problem singing the verses from "Give It Away" (you know, "What 'cha got, 'chya gotta give it to ya momma..." etc.) to the funky rhythm of "A Whisper Away."