Tyronne
Michael Holloway
Angela 3
Music Times
CibbuanoChili Peppers Accused of Plagiarism
May 25th 2006 00:29
MP3 Alert
Ok, I simply had to tell everyone about this as soon as I heard. But I have to go through this slowly...
Firstly, I like indie music. As a result, I appreciate and love originality in songs and don't particularly like ripoffs, neither blatant nor subtle. Coldplay have, on several occasions, admitted to heavily using influences, even to the point of ripping off other songs, but hey who the hell cares as long as I haven't heard the song before right? But what I hate more than that is when people have to spend their precious, or obviously not-so-precious time on revealing these bands for ripping off songs, or using other bands as influences. That's why when I heard this mp3 clip from American radio station WGMD accusing Red Hot Chili Peppers of ripping off Dani California from the Tom Petty song Mary Jane's Last Dance, I was confused and saddened.
Let's lay out the evidence they have presented to us, and you must know that I am analysing this as a musician.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
VS
Tom Petty
Exhibit A: Chord Progression
"It's the same chord progression, and it's the same rhythm."
Ok, so the chord progression?
Tom Petty: Am7 G D
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Am G D
Now, for all of those who don't know the technical side of music, chords are the skeleton of a song, the framework around which the instrumental and vocal melodies, among everything else gets placed. Now there are 12 unique notes on a keyboard, and essentially only 24 truly unique possible chord combinations without going into the various different possibilities. In order to keep a key of a song - basically the pitch - the same throughout, the chords and notes must match each other, meaning there are only really 6 chords in a whole key. So 12 possible keys, 6 chords per key. In the popular music industry, guess how many original chord progressions there are? Not many. For anyone who has ever played popular music, the following chord progression will look either like their best friend or that guy you're trying to get rid of but he keeps following you around:
G D Em C
That's the summation of the music industry in four simple chords. How many times have those four chords been recycled over the years? Countless. So, to say that a song is ripping off another song simply because of the chord progression is a really horrible excuse. There is no way that you can really write an extremely unique chord progression and keep it the same.
Exhibit B: Rhythm
I mean cmon. Chili Peppers are funk. Tom Petty is country/folk. For someone with a half-decent ear, and I am assuming these radio hosts don't have, the only similarity in rhythm is that the chords are hit on the first beat of each bar. CALL EINSTEIN! WE HAVE GENII HERE!
Not only this, but one of the callers actually says that the song sounds like Sweet Home Alabama. Now they quickly pawned him off, but remember the song - THE RHYTHM IS THE SAME YET AGAIN.
Exhibit C: Vocals
Again. Tom Petty is country/folk. Chili Peppers is funk with that special sort of neo-rap that Anthony Keidis has become famous for. You would expect Keidis' vocals to be fairly disjointed and Tom Petty? He's country, they do whatever the hell they want.
Exhibit D: Lyrics
Apparently, both songs mention America and use the word "mama." The only thing Chili Peppers are guilty of is poor lyrical writing and I won't hold that against them when they're such a great band musically.
Exhibit E: Popular Support
Now the two hosts use two forms of support for their accusation: the Tom Petty messageboard and listeners' support. Where do you turn when you want a pure, unadulterated and wholly unbiased opinion on the matter? The messageboard of the artist who is supposedly being ripped off! Wow, this is just some great decision making here from the radio hosts and seriously, kudos to them for great research into the matter.
What about the listeners. How many callers were there - five? six? And did you notice that faint similarity in their voices? Sure sounded to me like rednecks. Apologies to any and all American readers of this article, but the US does have rednecks, and it sounds like the entire redneck proportion of the US was listening to that very show, waiting to put their two cents in.
Ok, I realise that this is journalism and, as such, they are simply trying to cause trouble. But seriously, can you make a legitimate claim, instead of talking about something that is purely and obviously not blatant plagiarism as they continuously accuse? Many have supported this accusation with the excuse that Chili Peppers were on drugs at the time. Not only is George Clinton no longer their producer, but with John Frusciante's near-fatal overdose a decade ago, and the fact that they are all pretty much family guy, I think the band have matured beyond their pot-addled days. But oh well, get famous and you're bound to get blamed for something or other.
| 102 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Jimbo
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Yes, the Am G D progression is used over and over again...
Comment by zodingi
Comment by Anonymous
As a 'musician', you should be ashamed to say that there's basically only 24 unique chords. Also, there's 7 diatonic (meaning 'in key') chords in each key. Don't for get the diminshed chord on the 7th (b,d and f in C major). There's a whole world of harmonic possibilities out there, they don't have to include root, third, fifth and seventh at all. Just a G and an F is still a chord!
Yes you're right it is easy to stumble on the same chords (I wrote some nice chords once, only to find that a few months later the Spice Girls were using the same ones! Ouch! That was the last time I played them!) but why don't musicians and more importantly listeners take a more adventurous apporach rather than having everything rehashed in front of them and then acting like "oh, it's so egdy and fresh and new!!". Oh well, that's postmodernism for you.
Lastly, Chili Peppers should jack their lifeless corpse of a band in. Plagiarism or no.
Comment by Jimbo
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Jimbo
Comment by Scott
And you're right. The Chili's have all got over their drug addictions (Chad, the drummer drinks a bit of beer, but that's it)
Comment by Anonymous
But what you are still failing to see is that it is an obvious and blatant rip of the song. Credit given or not. Technicalities or not. It's the same.
Comment by Jimbo
The vocal rhythmics are indeed similar, but Anthony Keidis has been building a reputation for a while based on his "neo-rap" and so using it in this song is not unusual. The use of "mama" in both songs? They're American, the chance of them doing that is pretty high, and the contexts in which mama is used in each song is vastly different.
Why, in all of this earth, would RHCP plagiarise a country song from 13 years ago? I grant you the fact that there is a high possibility that elements of a song can be taken subconsciously simply through memory and such, but what they're being accused of here is simply poor journalism.
In the end, it comes down to opinion. While, in my opinion, there is too little evidence to support the case of the radio presenter, others may see differently, but I guarantee you that a case like this wouldn't hold in court.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Jimbo
Comment by Anonymous
Vocals in DC are much closer to this song and the chord progression is basically the same -
DC - Am G D
SITC - Cm Bb F
Comment by Jimbo
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Anonymous
Oh yeah and whoever said "Tainted Love" is by The Cure needs to reassess their facts.
Comment by Anonymous
bar somewhere. Lighten up Tom people will still buy your song and not even care what its about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by Hellvis
Comment by Marino
Plus, I also saw an interview by John Frusciante on how he thought up with the idea and basis for the song. John at the time listened to the Wu Tang clan. During this time, John was experimenting with the way rythms work in a song, and found it very interesting. He would improvise guitar parts over the Wu Tang clan album.
Knowing this, Chad played a simple "rap" like drum beat, and John followed accordingly, and that is how the main rythm of the guitar portion is made. (Notice how the root notes follow the drum beat, and the chord hits the same time as the strong beat.)
This method just happened to sound sort of like the rythm of Tom Petty's guitar part by coincedence, but with this evidence I am providing, you can hopefully clearly see that John was using original ideas, and same with the drum beat. The chord formation was coincedence. (It's not even exactly the same).
Ok, to clarify...
Guitar - original idea based on improvising with rythm
Drums - to be simple, like a 'rap' type beat
Bass - original, not similar to the Tom Petty song, so no arguments here
Vocals - similar, but as noted by Jimbo, this is one Anthony Kiedis' signiture vocal stylings, used in many other RHCP songs.
There's my view on it, backed up with evidence.