slappyjenkins

OK we all remember when Vanilla Ice actually came on TV and refused to acknowledge the sampling of David Bowie and Queen's 'Under Pressure' in his song 'Ice Ice Baby'. And Milli Vanili and the Grammies! And the love quadrangle within Fleetwood Mac. Also COLDPLAY was criticized for stealing music from all over the place! It was rumoured they would go to local clubs and listen to indie music and then go right to the studio and copy it and distribute it as their own.

What is your favorite controversy in the music world? List uncredited songwriting, samples used without permission, or even love triangles or murders.

I'll start us off with the Under Pressure Sampling in Ice Ice Baby.




Vanilla Ice Interview Denies Under Pressure Rip off on MTV 90s - YouTube

Ahahaha, you know if you listen to the two he's actually right! They put in an extra note/beat, but come on, that was a rip off.

slappyjenkins

Ok I found this...I can't even tell if he's serious, he looks like he's about to bust out laughing at any second...


Vanilla Ice says 'Sorry' - YouTube

I await your favorite scandals and Controversies in the music world!

Kelli

Since you mentioned Coldplay I remember them getting sued for stealing the melody from this song and using it in Viva La Vida. If you listen you'll get it - about 50 seconds into it you could probably sing along with the guitar if you wanted to - "I used to ruuuuule the world...." As annoying as it is to hear an artist stealing from someone else's work, this one did allow me to find a really great song out of it. Here's If I Could Fly:


Joe Satriani - If I Could Fly - YouTube

& I think the Vanilla Ice one was really obvious - I kind of assumed that everyone recognized Under Pressure from it anyways as them sampling the song in Ice Ice Baby. Lol. I enjoy both though.

slappyjenkins

Kelli, Yeah at :50 its apparent and at about the 2:00 mark its like a miracle, it turns into viva la vida. Good one!

There's probably TEN of these COLDPLAY scandals though, they were notorious for stealing music. Not hating on coldplay, I actually enjoy them, these are just facts.

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Sammie Lee Smith filed a lawsuit against the UK indie band yesterday (January 13, 2010) in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging that they stole his songs "Yellow", "Clocks" and "Trouble".
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The new Coldplay song is making the rounds, called "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall". Everyone's entitled to their own bad taste/guilty pleasures, so we won't judge if you dance along - but we've got a few things you might want to hear about the saviors of douche-rock while you're at it.

Coldplay are frequent targets of copyright claims, with song-theft accusations brought against them from Joe Satriani, Cat Stevens, Creaky Boards, and then once again with unknown songwriter Sammie Lee Smith.
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The simplistic nature of the main chord design in "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" suggests that they aren't exactly difficult to stumble upon, but does that excuse the derivative wimp-rock? Not necessarily, when the riff is pulled directly from a decade-old track by Mystic, entitled "Ritmo de la Noche".

As it turns out, both songs take cues from Peter Allen's comparatively awesome "I Go To Rio".
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And these are only a couple of the accusations that I've heard. As this thread goes along I'll dig around for some more Coldplay scandals, I'll post their song along with the song it was stolen from, but this surely fits on this thread. They are talented...talented plagarists!
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Janszoon

You left out the best part of that story: there's an even older song by the Argentine band Enanitos Verdes with the same melody. That either means Satriani stole the melody from them or it's simply a somewhat obvious progression that more than one person could have come up with, which undermines his case against Coldplay.

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slappyjenkins

Oh lord Janszoon great catch! I never heard of that song! Intrigue builds....muahahahaha

slappyjenkins

I'll go ahead and get this easy one out of the way....Milli Vanilli.

I have to admit I loved their songs. Their music was very vocal heavy with great hooks and melodies. Those guys could SING! Oh wait....no....they couldn't!!! Hahaha...oh sorry I guess I shouldn't laugh at the vocally challenged, hell I can't sing. But I never won a grammy and stood there and accepted it with a smile on my face either.

But my jab at them is only for their intentional fraud over the fans and the music industry. I know that Rob Pilatus died, and I wish he had not.

From Wiki
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Milli Vanilli became one of the most popular pop acts in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, their success turned to infamy when their Grammy was revoked after it was revealed by Chuck Philips of the LA Times that the lead vocals on the record were not the actual voices of Morvan and Pilatus
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And remember what gave it all away to begin with? A technical difficulty started the rumor. One of their tracks STUCK in a live performance.....all downhill from there....


Milli Vanilli LipSync Skip 466NOW 0001 - YouTube

Grammy Acceptance

Milli Vanilli wins Best New Artist Grammy (1990) - YouTube

And here we go on further downhill....and Milli Vanilli is Kaputz

Milli Vanilli press conference (1990) - YouTube

Urban Hat€monger ?

I don't see what the big deal with Milli Vanilli was.

European producers have been using session musicians & getting more glamorous looking people who don't sing or play to front these bands in promotional appearances and videos since the mid 50s.

Frank Farian, Milli Vanilli's producer was doing the exact same thing with Boney M 20 years earlier and nobody batted a eyelid over it then because it was so commonplace.

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Kelli

Oh yeah I forgot - I used to have a really good podcast episode that compared that same chord progression from four or five songs other than If I Could Fly. So you're right - either someone steals it from someone else every decade or so, or it's just a really obvious chord jump to write into a song. Nice catch.

Freebase Dali

I don't think chord progressions can really be considered "rip offs" unless, as displayed by cracker-jack whitey Vanilla Meth up there, it sounds almost indecipherable from the original. But, throwing a stick in the spokes of this whole thing in terms of Hip Hop, sampled music is practically one of the foundations of it. Whether it's credited or not is another thing entirely.
Extending beyond that to artists simply using common chord progressions, I think I'd draw some sort of arbitrary line to say we can't really copyright a chordal sensibility without stepping on someone's toes at one point or another.

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