REM – Everybody Hurts
I talked about clone songs a while back. There is yet another example from Dutch pop music that illustrates this point well.
Around 1998/1999 car-brand Mitsubishi aired a TV-commercial that featured music by a temporarily formed duo called City to City. The band name references to the fact that both band members (Maarten van Praag and Sandro van Breemen) have a city in their last name. Not only is their band name quite appropriate for a car commercial, so is their first and only hit single: The Road Ahead (Miles of the Unknown).
But if you listen to the song, the feeling creeps up on you, that you’ve heard this music before. Even the references to roads and cars somehow strike familiar. And you would be right. You might remember a video that (ironically) does not have a wide open road, but a traffic jam as its setting: R.E.M.‘s Everybody Hurts from 1993. Listen to both songs and you’ll notice: same instruments (especially the use of strings and percussion on the opening), same build-up, same mood, even almost the same melodies.
The single The Road Ahead topped the Dutch charts for 4 weeks and was #4 of best sold singles in 1999. The band City to City won the Edison (Dutch equivalent of a Grammy) for Best National Newcomer for that year. They released two more singles which failed to achieve any similar result, before City to City effectively split in 2002 when one of the two members left the band. The song The Road Ahead still shows up in the annual Top 2000 (best songs of all time list, compiled with votes from the listeners of Radio 2), usually somewhere between #500 and #900.
Here’s City to City – The Road Ahead:
And just for comparison, here’s R.E.M. – Everybody Hurts:
Get your facts right…
1. City to City was not temporarily formded. They were working, writing, recording and performing since 1997, two years before their break through
2. The Road Ahead was the #1 selling single in The Netherlands in 1999
3. The Road Ahead topped the charts for 7 weeks instead of 4 (7 Top 100, 6 Top 40).
4. Their single ‘House With Two Faces’ made it to #21 in the top 40. Maybe not a similair succes like you put it, but still an achievement other bands would die for…
Furthermore, yes, both The Road Ahead and Everybody Hurts have the same mood. But that’s basically it. The Road Ahead has a different melody (yes it does!), a different beat (4/4 instead of 6/8), different chords, different form (there is no bridge in the R.E.M. song for instance) etc. What you are talking about is merely ‘sound’. But if you start to compare songs purely on ‘sound’ alone, you will create yourself a dayjob by doing so…
Yes, the same instruments, but is that something that makes a ‘clone song’? Listen to ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Rightious Brothers, and then the R.E.M. song, and … well, fill in for yourself.
Don’t make the age old mistake (DJ’s often make) by mixing up the terms ‘sound’ and ‘musical build up and form’. They are two different terms…
Hi Marc, thanks for your input. When talking about clone songs, I like to talk about intent more than technicalities on whether or not a song is the same. Even if it was never the intent of the writers for it to be a clone song, someone who stuck it on the commercial and boosted it to the public surely did. True, Unchained Melody and Everybody Hurts share some mood, but I doubt R.E.M. ever intended to make a quick buck from ripping of the Righteous Brothers. I mean, even the Righteous Brothers didn’t write that song and they didn’t intend any harm in covering it.
My blog’s point is that ‘stealing’ an idea, a tune or just a mood isn’t always a bad thing and can produce a wide variety of music. But sometimes … sometimes you do wonder about the motives, which is the case with most clone songs. And for me that’s the case with The Road Ahead, because there’s so much circumstantial, but never conclusive evidence.
Still, if you want to get into technicalities, here’s me defence. I used Wikipedia as the source for most of the details.:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_to_City_%28band%29
Now I know Wikipedia, isn’t always reliable, but since there was very little other info to go on, that’s what I used.
1. WikiPedia says they were formed in 1998. If you have sources that say otherwise, please enlighten the wiki. The Mitsubishi ad as far as I can tell was aired around 1998/1999 making it very likely that despite they might have been working together for longer, they chose the official release name ‘City to City’ very shortly before the ad aired.
2. The Wiki says it was #4, but this was based on the Mega Top 100 and I get the impression you are basing your facts on the Top 40. I know purists like the Top 40, but that data was not available to me at the time.
3. Again, the Wiki says it stayed there for just 4 weeks. If that’s incorrect, please edit the Wiki and point to the correct sources so people like me don’t make the same mistakes. ;) Or please let me know what source you used, so I can use it a next time too.
4. You’re right, that’s basically what I meant. They never topped the chart again or even came close to the top spots. Btw, the Wikipedia article says it made it to #33, not #21. Now, I won’t call that a miserable failure, cause indeed many bands would love to be #33, but for majors keen on commercial success, that’s usually ‘not good enough’.
Again, thanks for the input. :)
This song is written because they couldn’t use the original REM song for the ad, so they let these guys write a song similar as possible