Stealing The Show

So, Coldplay deny they are thieves and plagiarists eh? I’ve just read a rather touching and heart felt interview with Coldplay drummer Colin Creed. Er, sorry, Will Champion where he countered claims from Yusuf Islam (he used to be Cat Stevens in case you didn’t know) that they had ripped off one of his songs ‘Foreigner Suite’ on their song Viva La Vida. Now, what really got on my tits about this is that the song really does sound like the Cat Stevens song and it is an exact rip off so why deny that it doesn’t sound like it? Are Coldplay currently in the transition period from music to politics? (I reckon Chris Martin secretly wears sock suspenders anyway) If so, I bet Bono is really becoming paranoid about them not just ripping off U2! One thing is for sure though: Coldplay do have a certain sound that seems very familiar, but they’re not alone. Many years ago in the early nineties Oasis were actually summonsed to court by the person who wrote the original music for a coke advert as it is an exact replica of ‘ShakerMaker’ off their debut album Definitely Maybe. If you have a listen to the Oasis song and are old enough to remember the coke song, you will see the similarities, but Oasis didn’t stop there, they went on to pretty much emulate everything The Beatles & John Lennon did from there on. If you don’t believe me, go and have a listen to The Soundtrack of Our Lives’ debut album, I guarantee you won’t believe your ears (or the truth, if you were Noel Gallagher) Some bands are actually quite honest when it comes to inadvertent plagiarism. The Verve admitted to using a sample from The Last Time by The Stones on the intro of their massive hit Bittersweet Symphony in the nineties. Now, who would think (apart from The Verve) that hey had used the exact same chords from The Last Time on ‘Bittersweet’? Not me, that’s for sure, but The Verve shot themselves in the foot BIG TIME as they ended up owing nearly 80% of the copyrights from ‘Bittersweet’ to Mick, Keef and the rest of the boys. You can picture the meeting now when five scruffs from Wigan turn up to meet The Stones: Ashcroft: “we’re gonna use some of your chords on this song, can we have permission to use them please Mr Jagger?” Mick: “sounds fuck all like it mate, but seeing as you’ve admitted it, sign here please” As regards blatant plagiarism, the way I see it, writing your own songs and creating your own sound is what makes a band truly original. I know it’s not really the easiest thing to do in the world of music as people do draw influences from their heroes and others including some established artists who are under pressure to release records, but at least give it a go at being original as I will guarantee you will be greatly admired more amongst your peers for doing so than ripping off someone else’s music. It also feels a hell of a lot better when you sit back and say “you know what? I wrote that!” Of course not everyone sets out with the intention of ripping off another song as it can happen by accident. As we all know there are only a small amount of chords for musicians to use after all, but serial offenders like Coldplay & Oasis are just kidding their fans by denying any wrong doing on their behalf and (in my opinion) in the process making themselves look like talent less knobheads who obviously don’t think twice about ripping someone off and letting their lawyers deal with the aftermath. What ever happened to respect your fellow musician? But going back to Will Champion and his closing comment on the subject was a quite superb point if you think about it: “One thing I’ve noticed about lawsuits is that they only get made public once a song becomes successful. Funny that isn’t it?” I’ll give the guy that one (even if he does look like Apollo) Mol