Tag: music

  • Van Halen – Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

    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 been sampled usually for the opening guitar lick by Eddie van Halen. The 2 Live Crew used it in their unimaginatively titled Fuck Shop from 1989. Scatterbrain jammed it somewhere in 1990 Down with the Ship song (which features tons of famous guitar songs). The most famous sample usage however is by English dance formation  Apollo 440 in their 1997 track Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub. Apollo 440 uses another iconic sample in the song. The opening “Let’s go back to the rock and see it in 440” is from the 1971 film (The Andromeda Strain (IMDb) and fits quite well in the clash of a rock song redone by Apollo 440.

    And since I love the Apollo 440 much more, here’s Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub:

  • Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy


    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 is by the Real McCoy’s song Automatic Lover in 1995. It only briefly uses the replayed riff of the original. In 1997 Legato makes a rather simple dance cover.  In 1999 Brice does a cover called Small Town Boy (Runaway).  O.R.N. does a cover in 2004.

    Around 2006 samples and (half-)covers of the song start piling up. Thomas Cajal releases Runaway in 2005 that borrows the tune and Jimmy sommerville’s vocals. A German rap-group K.I.Z. uses a sample in their 2005 rather rude track Hurensohn (whore’s son).  By 2006 the hits start rolling in. Supermode releases a hit song titled Tell Me Why in 2006 that leans heavily on the original. Swedish singer September releases the song Cry For You in 2005 that becomes a hit in 2006 and it too borrows from the Bronski Beat song. Scream Club releases Life of a Heartbreaker in 2006 which features the same riff but played with old school game computer sounds. By 2007 even Daft Punk catches up an incorporates the riff in their live set. Greek Cypriot singer Mixalis Xatzigiannis subtly uses  the riff in his 2007 song Etsi Se Thelo. In 2007 José González did a cover for the B-side of Down the Line. Sharon Corr (of The Corrs) did a cover.

    For some strange reason, there’s also lots of metal covers for the song. In 1999 metal band Depressive Age does a metal cover. Another metal cover is recorded by Paradise Lost in 2002. Atrocity did a cover version in 2008. Female-fronted metal band Delain did a cover in 2009.

  • Johnny Taylor – What About My Love

    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 hit What About My Love. So technically speaking the 2004 doesn’t contain a direct sample.

    There’s a second sample in the song and that’s also not direct. The vocals sung by a singer named Cookie were mostly original. The chorus however was directly borrowed and resung from Love Me Tonight by Anthony White from 1994.

  • Gary Moore – Still Got the Blues

    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 famous song of all, Still Got the Blues, seems to borrow very slightly from an older song. Check out the song Nordrach by Jud’s Gallery at around 6:18 and 9:16 (source: whosampled.com). It sounds very identical.

    The leader of the band thought so too and sued Gary Moore in 2008 (why so late?) and won. Gary Moore denied having heard the songs and while the court acknowledged he probably didn’t steal it on purpose he may have heard it on the radio or live back when it was played in 1974, even though the music had never been put on a record. Honestly, even if Gary Moore did hear it, forgot it, but remembered it sub-consciencely when he recorded his song, I think the claim is a bit too far. But such are copyright laws.

    Gary Moore (1952-2011) – Still Got the Blues

  • Hey Joe (Please don’t go to town)

    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 best) is by Jimi Hendrix, but this is not the case. Jimi Hendrix covered it and gave it his own spin as was usual in those days. But who did he cover it from?

    Hey Joe was a song that emerged in the early sixties and become one of those songs every band covered. Even the WikiPedia article can’t seem to figure out who wrote the original. The earliest know recording of Hey Joe is by the Leaves from 1965. Jimi Hendrix recorded his version in 1966. Some say it was a traditional song. The first copyright on it was claimed by a traveling musician Billy Roberts. He however may have composed the song out of mix of different originals, including Baby, Please Don’t Go To Town from 1955 by (his girlfriend) Niella Miller.

    After the success of the sixties versions, just about every body seems to have done a cover of the song:  Tim Rose (1969), Deep Purple, The Who (1989), Patti Smith (with a really awful solo), The Offspring (1991), Type-O-Negative (1992), Ice-T (1994, with his band Bodycount), Willy Deville, an all-star band, ZZ Top, Seal, Vai, Satriani, May and Walsh, and many many many many many more.  It makes you wonder how rich Billy Roberts actually got from the copyright, whether he did at all.

  • Radiohead – Creep

    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 recycled pop-tunes reign. But even their biggest and most covered hit, Creep from 1992,  is not a isolated work of brilliance.

    The songs credits list Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood as co-writers of the song.  Both of them are song-writers who have quite a few well-known songs from the sixties and beyond. One of the hit songs they wrote together is The Air that I Breathe from 1974 that was performed by The Hollies.

    While most people will recognise the subtle similarities in feel and even some chord progressions. And while Radiohead never confirmed they were inspired by the song by the Hollies, they were forced to put the credits on it regardless.

    Of course a whole string of people covered the Radiohead version. It was included in Rodeohead (a country & western cover/medley of Radiohead by Hard ‘n Phirm) in 2005. Tears for Fears have done it, Richard Cheese has done it, Amanda Palmer has done it, even Korn have done it and many many more.

  • Chic – Good Times

    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 written by bass-player John Deacon. According to Wikipedia: Chic co-founder Bernard Edwards stated, “…that Queen record came about because that Queen bass player… spent some time hanging out with us at our studio”.

    If you analyse the notes quite clinically, you can easily say that they are not exactly the same, but the arrangement of both is at least similar. The Queen version is much more simple. Still, on WhoSampled.com the comment-sections are filled when Queen as a sampler is not only linked to Chic, but also the track Christmas Rappin’ by Kurtis Blow from 1979. So Queen sampled Kurtis Blow? You could even argue that Rapture by Blondie was ‘sampled’ from Chic. Or Kurtis Blow.

    The versions by Chic, Queen, Blondie and Kurtis Blow have all been sampled so many times, (including the hold it now!-lyric by Kurtis Blow) it wouldn’t even be funny to list them all here. A few are very notable however.

    Of course the Sugarhill Gang’s Rappers Delight from 1979 was one of the first hip hop hits. As a result that track has been sampled a zillion times also (Hotel, Motel, Holiday-Inn) and the entry for that song alone on WhoSampled is two pages long.  The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel by Grandmaster Flash from 1981 mixes, Chic, Queen, Blondie and quite a few others together in one track. KRS-One’s Step Into a World (Rapture’s Delight) from 1997 borrows it’s slightly differently sung vocal line break Rapture by Blondie, but it’s ironic that the Rapture’s Delight references both the Blondie song, but also Rappers Delight, even though KRS-One doesn’t sample that at all in the song.

  • Kraftwerk – Computer Love

    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 talk about it any more. Personally, I think they may have heard the song and got inspired by it subconsciously. Either that or it’s poor coincidence.

    Still, Coldplay has got a track record of borrowing tunes. And some times it makes sense. The opening of Life In Technicolor from 2008 sounds a lot like the Jon Hopkins track Light Through the Veins, also from 2008. But there’s a really good reason for that. Jon Hopkins was one of the producers of the Coldplay track and he let them borrow it.

    A different case however is the song Talk from 2005. It became a massive hit, but what a lot of people don’t know is that the main theme is borrowed directly from a motif from Kraftwerk’s 1981 track Computer Love. But in all honesty, Chris Martin did try his best to write German to ask Kraftwerk if they could use it (they said yes).

  • Thievery Corporation – Resolution

    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 spark interest in the Netherlands. One of its members, Liset Alea (who doesn’t even have a wiki-page), left the group to go solo.

    When finally she releases an album in 2005, it’s on the Dutch branch of EMI music. It’s titled No Sleep after the title track and first single No Sleep. It’s produced by Yoad Nova, who also did work for the likes of the Sugababes (among others involved on Freak Like Me, which has been mentioned here before), Bryan Adams and Sophe Ellis-Bextor. Right from the beginning of the song, what do we hear? Thievery Corperation – Resolution:

  • Movie Sequel Clones

    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 keep the audio backdrop the same and recognisable. Sampling, covering, a tribute and some times blatantly stealing become justified.

    The most famous and often cloned song are obviously the James Bond opening songs. Don’t confuse these with John Barry’s James Bond theme song however, since this usually precedes the opening credits. No, the big epic songs by famous musicians usually have a distinct style that not only use the same instrumentation but often roughly the same build-up. Compare You Only Live Twice (1967) by Nancy Sinatra and The World Is Not Enough (1999) by Garbage for instance. It should be noted that, though performed by a wide range of artists, all of the recent themes are the work of composer David Arnold and the Bond films are heavily formula driven.

    While the first Rocky film from 1976 has a signature theme song by Bill Conti (Gonna Fly Now), the band Survivor did the theme song for Rocky III in 1982; Eye of the Tiger. When Survivor got asked to also do the music to Rocky IV in 1985, the composed a similar song in composition and feel: Burning Heart. When the job of composing the soundtrack for Rocky V in 1990 came to some one else, the first thing you notice in the track by Joey B. Ellis is the fact that it indirectly samples Eye of the Tiger again in Go For It while the style of the track is very similar to The Power also from 1990 by Snap. Snap was also on the full soundtrack of Rocky V.

    Like with Rocky, theme songs often get updated to fit the current popular style of music. When the original Ghostbusters film from 1984 got a sequel in 1989 with Ghostbusters II, the theme song from the original, Ray Parker jr.’s Ghostbusters, got a hiphop treatment by Run DMC also titled simply Ghostbusters. The original Mission: Impossible theme song to the 1960’s tv-show fitted perfectly in its time with the James Bond-style spy tune. When it got made into a film in the 1996, the Mission: Impossible theme was quickly adapted by U2’s Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen to a more electronic version. When Limp Bizkit got to do it in 2000 their song Take a Look Around again borrows from the original but with a totally different spin.

    The list of example is endless. Feel free to comment about the ones you know, love or despise.