I just wonder what bands you guys think rip off other bands. Like, The Mighty Lemon Drops ripped off Echo and the Bunnymen. Sixpence None the Richer totally rip off the Sundays. Coldplay rips off Radiohead. INXS ripped off David Bowie. The Alarm ripped off U2. Sometimes the ripper can be pretty great. Early Springsteen really, really ripped off Dylan.
We had a thread similar to this, linking specific songs to other that sound very much alike. As for bands, I'm not too sure. But as for songs, Sublime's "What I Got" sounds an awful lot like The Beatles' "Lady Madonna" and Papa Roach's "Last Resort" main riff is stolen from Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"
Godsmack is such a ripoff of Alice in Chains it isn't funny (even though I don't hate Godsmack as much as many people do). Hell, their name is an Alice and Chains song.....
Finch rips off Glassjaw Taking Back Sunday rips of Thursday AFI rips of the Misfits, Rancid, and Bauhaus The Strokes rip off the 60's
I'm sure Sully and the other guys would take that as a compliment. Seeing as they started life as an AiC tribute band (hence the name) and have stated in local radio interviews on WAAF that they pretty much still consider themselves and AiC tribute band, just one that does original songs now, i.e. they still pretty much try to sound like them. BTW, I pretty much can't stand Godsmack either.
What was the band with a heroin-addict lead singer who sounded so much like Eddie Vedder that a lot of people thought they were a Pearl Jam tribute band? I should be able to get the name since I saw them once (the heroin-addict lead singer got hit in the head with a muddy sneaker twice in the same show... a thing of beauty) but other than that, since they were opening for Butthole Surfers... every other memory was erased.
I would NEVER associate INXS with Bowie. Maybe Bowie was an early influence, but I don't see it in any of their 80s "hits." The Alarm were huge ripoffs but they rode the Irish wave in the early 80s as far as they could.
i agree with c-pizzeria on the INXS - i thought about that today and i'm still not sure why that didn't ring false earlier simply put: sillyness - the biggest similarities are the acoustic guitar use and the high quality
Re: Re: Bands that are ripoffs of other bands Coldplay is Radiohead with a teenaged girlfriend and a lobotomy.
I would honestly say over 50% of the people I know thought John Mayer was Dave Matthews the first time they heard him on the radio (turning it on mid-song.) He may be different now, but his first batch of material he was often using Matthews-esque vocal inflections. I don't see how people can't see the similarity. Granted, we all though it was weakest material Matthews ever put out, but it still sounded like him.
Re: Re: Re: Bands that are ripoffs of other bands funny... and morbidly false... yet something to aspire to 1-without going into detail... this does not convince me... at all 2-their voices are easily distinguishable, 0-2 3-i realize people who like one tend to like the other, but they are pretty different artists in just about every way... out of curiousity, do you play guitar? because if you do... i don't see how you are confusing them
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bands that are ripoffs of other bands I'm not trying to convince you...just stating my opinion. I like Dave Matthews, that's why I was disappointed to think that Mayer's material was Matthews' material. I tinker, and that's the main thing that made me question my ears. Matthews is 10 times the guitar player Mayer is. Matthews has a lot of interesting chord progressions, etc.
i guess it's cool you see it your way i see it mine, but other than the fact that they are BOTH outstanding acoustic guitar players and excellent songwriters... well you know in any event, a quick comparison voice: jm-very breathy with good falsetto bursts dm-quite nasal, likes to go meow-style out the side of his mouth, and yes has several distinctive vocal tics and hiccups guitar style: jm-mutes individual strings a lot and plays hard over them, very often uses his thumb on the low G, often plays eloquent solos, several palm mutes, likes to play at the top of the neck a lot dm-much more picking and two or three string bursts and/or slides, never solos (preferring to leave those to the fiddle and sax players), a big fondness for jazz chords and bar chords song style: jm-generally holds a tight, lean structure dm-as we know, likes to meander lyric style: jm:earnest and playful, often about girls, quite personal, questions himself and those who were/are close to him dm-often a bit cryptic, likes to toy with the typical sentence structure, more universal in theme, questions society a good bit anyway, i think they both rule and i suggest you try out john's stuff that isn't on the radio
I'm suprised Ted Cikowski hasn't stopped by to say that Pavement is a ripoff of The Fall. A friend of mine used to refer to all of the 80's hair bands that ripped each other off as "Great White Lion Snake". Murf
I was wondering how many posts it would take before someone mentioned either Pavement/The Fall or The Cure/New Order (possibly MVBM's two longest-running debates). Here's one: it's no secret that early Metallica was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, but over half the riffs on Ride the Lightning appeared on Master of Reality in some form or another.
Doesn't just about EVERY emo band borrow in equal parts from Glassjaw, Sunny Day Real Estate, and (occasionally) Weezer?
Re: Re: Re: Bands that are ripoffs of other bands You're right. Not that it matters. I always thought that Billy Joe from Green Day tried waaaay to hard to sound like Joe Strummer. My cousin picked up "Dookie" when it 1st came out and I said - "Sounds like Joe Strummer's singing for a new band." He replied - "Who's Joe Strummer?" Oh well - what can you do with these new punk converts?