Van Halen released Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love in 1978. It has since been covered often, for instance by Minutemen in 1984, by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in 1991 and more recently by Die Hunns in 2006. Surely the oddest one out cover is the version by Jazzkantine from 2008. Apart from that the song has […]
Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy The year 2006 seems to be the absolute peak for the song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Not so much the original song, which was released in 1984, but as far as covers and sampling of the song goes. One of the first instances for the song to pop up […]
In 2004 the Shapeshifters (or Shape:UK if you live in the US) scored a modest hit with Lola’s Theme. Before that in 2003 however, it was already circulating as an instrumental only. The version with vocals had its entire instrumentation re-played from the instrumental version that contained a sample. That sample is Johnny Taylor’s 1982 […]
Gary Moore died yesterday so I decided to switch the post I had in mind for today around to make room for this one. Gary Moore was undeniably a very creative musician who had good control over his instrument of choice the guitar. And though he wrote quite a bulk of original work, his most […]
Some songs don’t have an original, or it has become impossible to trace who wrote it or performed it first. You’d think this was just the case for any folk song pre-dating 1900, but it even happens for more recent classics. Take Hey Joe. Most people will say that the original (the one they know […]
This post is somewhat of a follow-up on the post about Coldplay. Sometimes a song is so coincidentally similar, that despite it being an original work, people have to be credited because otherwise there will be lawsuits. Radiohead are often praised as being musical geniuses who have made ‘difficult’ and ‘experimental’ music in a time where […]
If you want a heated debate among music lovers, then suggest that Queen stole their idea for Another One Bites the Dust from Good Times by Chic. Or sampled them even. But did they? Here’s the facts. Chic’s Good Times came out in 1979. Another One Bites the Dust came out in 1980 an was […]
Coldplay got a bit of flack in 2008 because their song Viva La Vida from the same year sounded a lot like If I Could Fly by Joe Satriani from 2004. Satriani sued, but dropped the charges when Coldplay and Satriani decided to settle out of court. Part of the deal was that they wouldn’t […]
Here’s a really quick one I submitted to whosampled.com recently: In 2002 American lounge/triphop-duo Thievery Corporation released their album The Richest Man in Babylon. On it is the instrumental track Resolution. Around the same time another American triphop band named Etro Anime is making a small name for itself, though their effort seems to mainly […]
A special brand of clones are movie theme songs. Or more precisely sequel theme songs. Often film studios exploit a sequel as “the same film but with more explosions”, likewise they give the soundtrack the same treatment for a quick cash in. And like you try to keep the characters the same, you want to […]
