Songs that sounds like other songs.

[Mojotronica]

These two are well-documented:

Classic example #1:
George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" sounds like the Chiffons "He's So Fine."

Classic example #2:
Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" sounds like Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name."

These are ones I've noticed over the years. They may be documented somewhere:

Lesser known example #1:
Nazareth's "Love Hurts" sounds like the Righteous Brothers "Unchained Melody."

Lesser known example #2:
Billy Joel's "You're Only Human" sounds like Natalie Cole's "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love.)"

Lesser known example #3:
R Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" borrows heavily from Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone," which sounds like the Entertainment Tonight theme.

Lesser known example #4:
Big Audio Dynamite's "The Globe" borrows heavily The Clash's cover of "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Lesser known example #5:
Chicago's "25 & 6 to 4" sounds like Led Zeppelin's "Baby I'm Gonna Leave You."

Some are blatant rip-offs. You can feel free to mock the artists who basically stole whole riffs from the past:

Rip-off example #1:
MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" consciously ripped-off Rick James "Superfreak."

Rip-off example #2:
Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" consciously ripped-off Queen/David Bowie's "Under Pressure."

Rip-off example #3:
Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" consciously ripped-off Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun."

I'll add more as they occur to me. Please feel free to add your own.

 

[embitteredpoet]

Van Morrison's Gypsy ripped off House of the Rising Sun by The Animals
(it sounds nothing like the orginal New Orleans by Leadbelly, or the Woody Guthrie version of House of the Rising Sun really though)

 

[Mojotronica]

Britney Spears' "Oops I Did it Again" borrowed heavily from her "Hit Me Baby One More Time," which sounds like Barbra Streisand's "Woman In Love."

 

[Cilpot]

U2's "Beautiful Day" sounds like A-Ha's "The sun always shines on TV"

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Rip-off example #2:
Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" consciously ripped-off Queen/David Bowie's "Under Pressure."

The booklet of Queen's Greatest Hits 2 mentions this, so I think it was authorized. Still, "Ice Ice Baby" sucks badly.

I noticed that the first chords of Rainbow's "Since You Been Gone" and AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" sound exactly the same. But I can't imagine that there's any connection because both guitarists are too good to have copied off another. And apart from that, both songs were released almost simultaneously.

"Down By The Seaside" by Led Zeppelin sounds incredibly much like The Rolling Stones in almost every respect, and almost everybody I played this song to (my parents, who are big Stones fans) agree on this. But it's not so much a rip-off as either a coincidence or perhaps a homage.

I once heard a song (it was in the charts some years ago) that ripped off the background ambiente and choir of Bob Dylan's classic "Knocking On Heaven's Door" (to all Guns 'n' Roses fans, that was the original one). Needless to say, the track sucked. I don't know the name of the track or artist, though.

Also, I noticed that "Is There Anybody Out There" by Pink Floyd sounds pretty much like the intro to "Stairway To Heaven", but again, David Gilmour is too much of a great guitarist to consciously copy Jimmy Page.

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[Mojotronica]

Right on Embittered Poet and Cilpot -- please keep 'em coming!

 

[Mojotronica]

You too Stefan

 

[Syterion]

Most rap songs sound a lot like most rap songs.

Seriously though, most rap songs are too similar to stand, IMO.

I don't really know what songs I listen to that sound like others. Oh wait, Barenaked Ladies' Pinch Me and One Week sound similar.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Pink Floyd's early works have a lot in common with "Planet Caravan" by Black Sabbath.

 

[Mojotronica]

The bass line of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" sounds like Charlene's "I've Never Been to Me."

 

[Halcyon]

Just about any recent popular band's songs can be almost unnoticeably segued into any of their others. It's 'their style', apparently. Not a marketing ploy at all, apparently, nor does it stem from a lack of being any good. 'Kay.


More amusing is that "White cliffs of Dover" can be played over the top of "Somewhere over the rainbow" without clashing. Cough. Just don't ask how I noticed.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Speaking of Black Sabbath, there are many similarities between their first two albums. "Black Sabbath" (the song) and "War Pigs" sound almost identical at the very first moment. There is also a riff on the first album that sounds like a proto-version of "Paranoid".

Many do not know that Queen had done a song similar to "Bohemian Rhapsody" before. It is called "The March Of The Black Queen" (on the "Queen 2" album), and it is a raw diamond on which the idea of a song like BoRhap was first explored.

 

[Mojotronica]

Cole's Porter's "Anything Goes" sounds like Irving Berlin's "Putting on the Ritz."

 

[Loaf Warden]

The Rolling Stones noticed after they released their song "Has Anybody Seen My Baby" that it sounds a lot like k.d. lang's "Constant Craving". If I recall my Pop-Up Video trivia correctly, they even decided to compensate her for it, even though she herself never complained.

Most rap songs sound a lot like most rap songs.

Seriously though, most rap songs are too similar to stand, IMO.

Though I can't really say I disagree with this, I have often observed that 'it all sounds the same' is the most common criticism given against any musical genre. I think it simply comes from not liking the genre, and therefore not being interested enough to listen to a large enough sample of the genre to get a feel for what all the variations are within the tradition of that genre. There are people to whom all classic rock sounds the same, or all country sounds the same, or all classical music sounds the same, or all disco sounds the same. Then there are those who are major enthusiasts of those genres and can quickly and easily identify different artists and styles and sub-genres whenever they hear them.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

Feeder - Forget About Tommorrow and U2 -Beutiful Day have a similiar sounding intro

 

[Mojotronica]

Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud" sounds like Eric Carmen's "All By Myself."

 

[Loaf Warden]

Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker, Jr. because he felt that "Ghostbusters" sounded too much like "I Want A New Drug".

The members of Creedence Clearwater Revival sued John Fogerty because they felt his "The Old Man Down The Road" sounded too much like their "Run Through The Jungle." The truly bizarre part is that John Fogerty had been the leader of CCR, and he was the one who had written "Run Through The Jungle" in the first place. Yes, CCR lost that lawsuit.

 

[Mescalhead]

The beginning of that one Strokes song sounds like it was ripped straight from that Tom Petty song: "She was an American girl". Maybe it was called American Girl?

Pink Floyd's early works have a lot in common with "Planet Caravan" by Black Sabbath.

Say what?

 

[anarchywrksbest]

All Nickelback songs sound like the last one.

And some rap fool stole the intro to Kashmir.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Say what?

It's the same style- compare the live part of Umma Gumma with Planet Caravan, for example (The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn or A Saucerful Of Secrets will do as well, of course)