songs that sound like other songs

"Last" by Nine Inch Nails (on the BROKEN e.p.) recalls Queen's "Fight from the Inside" (down to a stolen riff). Trent's a big Queen fan, allegedly.

The first note of Cheap Trick's "Stop This Game" (on ALL SHOOK UP) is a slow fade-in that is purportedly the last note of SGT.PEPPER's.

The Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" ripped off The Jam's "In the City"

("Girl Like You" was Edwyn Collins, who's not shitty)

I hear a slight resemblance between the choruses of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and Starz's "So Young, So Bad." Maybe it's just the chord changes.

I'm sure there are several other "Sweet Leaf" rip-offs that I can;t think of right now.

This is Smoke on the Water: Dun dun DUN, dun dun DUN-DUNN
This is Cat Scratch Fever: Dun dun DUN, dun-dun DUN

And hey, did anyone notice the resemblances between "Ice Ice Baby" and "Under Pressure"?

You're shitting me. :-)

(Sorry. Listening to Sabotage at the moment.)

dsico

(Not listening to Sab right now.)

more terribly, the offspring's "get a job" and "o bla di o bla da" by the beatles have very similar choruses (try singing one over the other sometime, it's horrifying).

Furthermore, for the record: an obvious choice, perhaps, but Pulp's "A Little Soul" and Smokey R. and the M.'s "The Tracks of My Tears".

Other than that, the similarity of the intro to Cast's "Fine Time" and Guns'n'Roses "Paradise City" could be pretty confusing at indie discos in the mid-ninties, just when you're ready to blow the whistle and rock out with Axl, Izzy and Slash you get, "What's it all about? Do you really want to know..."

Shit.

I'm sure that's no accident, given Rick Rubin's appreciation for old school metal.

The Manic Street Preachers' "If You Tolerate This Than Your Children Will Be Next" was alleged to have ripped off the Stranglers' "Duchess," but I find that a bit of a stretch.....and I'm a much bigger fan of the Stranglers than I'll ever be of the Manics.

Then, of course, Nirvana stole the riff from Killing Joke's "Eighties" for "Come as You Are." Little known fact is that my beloved Killing Joke stole that very same riff from the Damned's "Life Goes On" (on the STRAWBERRIES album).

Big Black's "L Dopa" off SONGS ABOUT FUCKING is virtually indistiguishable from Killing Joke's "the Wait".

The Germs' "No God" ripps the opening riff off of Yes' "Roundabout," but that's more willfull desecration rather than theft (despite the fact that guitarist Pat Smear is an unapologetic Yes fan).

Oh, and dancing at Mother to retro-ironic white trash trailer rock last night, I realised that there's a Sloan song which is Foghat's Slow Ride down to a T, but I can't remember which one it is.

Butthole Surfers' "Human Cannibal" is "The Rose" by Bette Middler. Sing along. "Some say love..."; it's eerie.

I'm blanking right now....

that Spirit song (?) -> "Stairway to Heaven" -> that Metallica song (?)

That Offspring song rips of Simon & Garfunk's Cecilia.

(more like 2.40 in this video)

that’s the “neapolitan chord,” aka the bII, which resolves to the I. most of the song is in e minor, so when it goes to an f major (a chord that doesn’t neatly fit into the e minor or e major scales) it’s very creepy and dissonant, and even more so when it resolves to the major instead of the home minor key.

don’t think this is the example you’re thinking of, but radiohead's “pyramid song” makes heavy use of this same chord and resolution

maybe “because” by the beatles? not the exact same resolution but probably closer to the vibe

Dog Latin, have you considered the usual suspects for string parts? ELO, Eurythmics, Dream Academy?

dog latin, is it possible you're thinking of "macarthur park"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3XMOdOdKM

The verse in this song is very reminiscent of Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me"

you might be thinking of 0:47 here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=070ecdv7vr0

heartspark dollarsisgn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Pop985sJQ
whats so funny bout love peace and understanding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssd3U_zicAI

I want to hear someone singing "This Is The Rhythm Of the Night" to the tune of "There Must Be An Angel"

Thanks for indulging my Lankum question, all. Interesting about the Neopolitan chord. Lemme look into the suggestions

Ye Mad Puffin, you are definitely onto something with Eurythmics / ELO. I am now listening to Annie Lennox's Diva album to see if it's something from that. It's definitely something my parents would have listened to around the turn of the 90s

It's a passing thing, but the intro of this Argentinian rock song reminds me of "Two Tickets to Paradise" by Eddie Money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmZ54ziDlf0

was surprised not to find a knopfler writing credit for this one

jidenna bambi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Eeju2aiGY
dire straits why worry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_03uXQiz6eY

From the title, to the structure, to the chord changes, to the rhyme scheme, "Sad Cinderella" by Townes Van Zandt is a rewrite of "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". The choruses are a little different.

As was called out recently when I was mindlessly whistling Cygnus X-1: Book II (Hemispheres) by Rush…that one melodic line at 5:45 (this is but one of many occurrences in the song) that’s sung after the brief pause bares more than a passing resemblance to the chorus of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” (which I had somehow never heard before).

the ascending melody at 0:57 in Minikon's Mishu Fantasy (2005) sounds like the pre-chorus of 'Get Lucky'. I like to think this pokes a hole in the "'Get Lucky'= god, 'Blurred Lines' = satan" dichotomy, but what are the odds that Daft Punk & co. ever listened to the Japanese edition of this little known twee IDM album?

shuggie otis's "strawberry letter 23" is the grinning grandpa to the dour self-serious REM dirge "half a world away"

Miley "Flowers" sounds like Santana ft. Rob Thomas

What I hear is...

I can by myself Flowers
And getting caught in the rain

what i hear is...nothing because I turn whatever apparatus I'm looking at/listening to off when that song comes on

“Solitary Man” has a bit that sounds like “Hawaii Five-O”

when eno's 'on some faraway beach' begins, i expect bob seger to start singing 'still the same'

lol

I have no idea how it never occurred to me until last night, having heard the Jeopardy! theme song thousands of time, but surely I'm not the first to notice its resemblance to "I'm A Little Teapot?"

Just realized that “say what you want” lifts it’s pre-chorus from “sexual healing” mixed with Prince’s “love thy will be done”.

The Texas song that is.

Guitar line also sounds lifted from Al Green “Tired of being alone”.

They even covered “tired of being alone” but smartly decided to remove the guitar line for strums instead so it wouldn’t seem like a direct connection to their own hit.

I have no idea how it never occurred to me until last night, having heard the Jeopardy! theme song thousands of time, but surely I'm not the first to notice its resemblance to "I'm A Little Teapot?"

― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, February 10, 2024 5:24 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think this every single time i watch

I'm a little teapot short and stout
This author created character "Kilgore Trout"

John Martyn - "Over The Hill" (1973)
Fleetwood Mac - "Over My Head" (1975)

"Hold On Loosely"
"Just What I needed"

I don’t know which Cure song in particular it reminds me of but Metro Station - “shake it” does a very distinctive Robert Smith copy on vocalizations throughout this song. Specifically on:

“Tonight you're falling in love,
This feeling's tearing me up,
Now if she does it like this, will you do it like that?
Now if she touches like this, will you touch her right back?
Now if she moves like this, will you move her like that?”

Pavement - "Fillmore Jive" (1994)
Te Vaka - "Loimata e Maligi" (2002) (aka "An Innocent Warrior" in Moana)

same chord progression

Now if she does it like this, will you do it like that?
Now if she touches like this, will you touch her right back?
Now if she moves like this, will you move her like that?”

I don't know this song but the lyrics are making me think of All Coming Back To Me by Celine Dion, which I always think is a Meatloaf song because it's almost a parody of one, then I googled today and realised Jim Steinman wrote it and his band did it originally

Nobody did bombast better than Jim Steinman

Lol yeah that Celine Dion song is totally a Meat Loaf song.

Song at 4:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ljHhR8XPA

Sarah Brightman & Steve Harley, "The Phantom of the Opera"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzBJNCXL9Vg

just occurred to me that Fugs - "The Garden Is Open" is a "Masters of War" rip

I have had "She Blinded Me With Science" stuck in my head for a while, and it always morphs into "Owner of a Lonely Heart."

The chorus of Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" sounds like it was snipped out of "American Pie"

noticing now that there's a bit of melody in the magnetic fields' "sweet-lovin man" ("there's just one kind of love/you can spend your life dreaming of") that strongly evokes big star's "thirteen" ("rock and roll is here to stay")

"Buildings" by an artist called Not Me But Us sounds like a knockoff of Slowdive's "Prayer Remembered".

"Allison Road" by Gin Blossoms and "The Little Black Egg"

"lightning strikes" by YES sounds like a modernized cover of "wallbanger" by GRYPHON