This resulted in a lawsuit and a victory for Huey Lewis.
Original:
Ripoff:
I loved the Ghostbusters video as a 12-year-old in 1984, though.
WTF, that isn't a ripoff. The melodies are only vaguely similar. Ghostbusters theme is superior anyway IMO.
They settled out of court, so it probably was.
Lewis claimed that the bass/guitar riff, which runs through the song, was ripped off from him.
BTW, the celebrities appearing in the Ghostbusters video (aside from the actual stars of the movie) are Chevy Chase, Irene Cara, John Candy, Melissa Gilbert, Ollie E. Brown, Jeffrey Tambor, George Wendt, Al Franken, Danny DeVito, Carly Simon, Peter Falk, and Teri Garr.
Surprising that Jeffrey Tambor was only 35 when he appeared in "The Ropers". He seemed well into his 40s. He now has twin 3-year-old sons, despite being 68.
Johnny Cash...how could you?
But then Cat Stevens was like, hey fuck both you guys.
FF to the 5:15 mark
But as I said before, there is very little new under the sun.
The only common factor is the bassline, which isn't a complex melody at all. It's more like a simple chord progression.
Whoever came up with I - V - vi - IV must be a multibillionaire I guess.
exactly!!
There are only so many chord progressions out there. People make too big of a deal about whether a song sounds like another....if its a complicated progression, sure. But if its essentially 4 chords, there have to be TONS of similar songs.
The bassline in I Want a New Drug is just A-G-D over and over. This is a form of V - IV - I, an extremely common rock progression. There is nothing unique about that, it's used in tons of songs. Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama are a few examples. The only thing unique about it in this song is the rhythm that it's played in.
Progressions are basic and will inevitably be repeated in popular music. But creating unique melodies is pretty easy. If you copy those, there's no excuse.
aerosmith riff on train kept a rollin...clearly of ripoff of Honey Hush version by Foghat.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19848...t-hits_p1.html
Man something made me watch that whole vid radiohead ripped off.combo of frontmans hair and awkward stare was awesome.
When I was about 14, I wrote a song on guitar that I was super proud of. Some time later I discovered that it was basically just Pachelbel's Canon. I was pretty bummed.
Even The Boss has been known to indulge in occasional plagarism shenanigans.
Listen to the first 30 seconds of his 2012 single We Take Care Of Our Own, then do the same for A Flock of Seagulls 80s hit Wishing.
Several more.
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...ac.yWh04LQ3dBM
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