Round 4 - Plagiarism

From http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.com/

Great suggestion from Jeb - and a theme that's been in waiting for a while now, pending Jeb's return to the fold. Although the theme was Jeb's, the selection of tracks had to be mine - I can only show what's readily available. I tried to avoid the too obvious (My Sweet Lord) and also offer a variety of different types of (alleged) plagiarism, so here's the 9 tracks that were chosen:

1. Knickerbockers - Lies. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knickerbockers - there was little doubt amongst the Headbangers present (with the exception of our host) that this track is a blatant rip-off of the Beatles style. At the time, the rumour mill had it that it was actually a "lost" Beatles recording.
2. Doors - Hello I Love You. To me, the main riff is identical to the Kinks' All Day and All of the Night, and 5 of us agreed that they should have been sued for this, but Andy, Dylan and Dave disagreed.
3. Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused. Most of us hadn't heard of Jake Holmes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Holmes) prior to this Headbang, but the opening bars of his track quickly convinced all bar Ian that Jimmy Page was guilty for claiming credit for writing it - check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc
4. John Lennon/Beatles - Come Together. This was an entirely different ball-game. The owners of the publishing rights for Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me successfully sued John Lennon, who, to my mind at least, only half borrowed the opening line for his song -  "Here come ol' flattop, he come groovin' up slowly". Chuck had written "Here come a flattop, he was movin' up with me" but otherwise I, personally, don't see any comparison, and nor did the Headbangers, with the exception of Jeb.
5. Jam - Start. There's surely nobody alive who doesn't realise that the main riff is George Harrison/Beatles' Taxman, but, to their credit, the Beatles never resorted to plagiarism litigation. The Headbangers' majority vote acknowledged the debt that the Jam owed, but Andy and Dave were in the minority who felt there was a little more to the Jam song than the main riff, and these two gave Paul Weller & Co a slightly surprising Not Guilty verdict.
6. Men at Work - Land Down Under. The allegation here was that Men at Work had ripped off a traditional Australian folk tune Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, but it was apparently just the flute solo that aroused suspicion when Land Down Under became a huge international hit. After listening to both, only Andy and Ian thought there was any substance to the allegation.
7. Oasis - Shakermaker. The comparison here was with the original Coca-Cola ad from the 70's, which was subsequently extended to a full song and a (non-advertising) recording was made by the New Seekers, which went on to become a huge hit. Our assembled throng were split by this one. Dave abstained (presumably not on purpose), whilst Andy, Dylan and Ian thought Oasis/Noel Gallagher should be absolved from blame, but Colin, Gerry, Jeb and I voted them Guilty.
8. Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony. A well publicised case. We played the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's version of the Stones' The Last Time and there's no doubt that the Verve have just taken a straight lift of the strings from it, but, in today's world of extensive sampling, is there anything wrong with that? Well, yes - the Verve didn't ask permission and, as a result, never made a dime from their huge international hit. Andy and Ian were the only ones who thought they shouldn't be hanged.
9. Coldplay - Viva La Vida. The most recent example played and probably the most difficult to decide. Creaky Boards was the group who first made claims, but perhaps Coldplay's (and Apple's) financial muscle dissuaded them from pursuing this too far. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUhFLiw6h6s for a comparison. There's lots of others have since come out of the woods but nobody has managed to successfully pursue litigation. Why even Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam started to show some interest, claiming that Love Heaven from Foreigner back in 1973 pre-dated them all. The Headbangers were split again on this one - Colin, Dave, Ian & Gerry thought Coldplay didn't have a case to answer, but Andy, Jeb, Dylan and I disagreed, resulting in a hung jury.

To summarise, Knickerbockers, Doors, Led Zeppelin, Jam and Verve have been found Guilty by the Headbangers jury and await their sentence, whilst John Lennon and Men at Work are free men. Not Proven verdicts were delivered in the cases of Oasis and Coldplay.

A quick analysis of the voting patterns reveals that you wouldn't want Jeb in your jury if you were up in court on a murder rap - he reckoned 8 of the 9 examples were Guilty, only admonishing Men at Work. I'm not much better, with only John Lennon and Men at Work escaping. On the other hand, Dave's a bit of a soft touch, as he reckoned only Led Zep and Verve were Guilty.