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So you've heard this song repeatedly, and you're utterly certain it's from Group A. You look all over Group A's discography trying to find it, but simply can't. And with good reason: the song was actually performed by someone else.
Often shows up due to mis-tagged files on file-sharing services, a small-scale Did Not Do The Research blossomed into widespread misinformation. Also, after some artists gain a measure of mainstream success in a niche genre or Signature Style, all songs in that apparent genre or style are often misattributed to them. Or it might just be an honest mistake—the two lead singers sound like each other (as in the first example below). Still, it guarantees an uphill battle against Fan Dumb for both bands.
See also Refrain From Assuming and Covered Up. All Animation Is Disney for a similar trope in a different medium (and both are subtropes of Small Reference Pools).
Examples:
- No, that The Legend Of Zelda-inspired song was never performed by System Of A Down. That version is by Joe Pleiman, from an album called The Rabbit Joint.
- No, not every parody song is by Weird Al Yankovic. (Bob Rivers and Richard Cheese are prime candidates; if it's country, Cledus T. Judd is most likely the actual performer.) Al addresses it in his FAQ
 .
- Funny you should mention Cheese, because that lounge-like cover of "Wonderwall" making the rounds isn't his. Current speculation is it's really (shudder) Pat Boone.
- Unless Pat Boone or someone else did a version more recently, I'd guess it'd be The Mike Flowers Pops version, which actually came out around the same time as the original.
- Cledus T. gets this as well; some songs attributed to him are actually Rodney Carrington or Tim Wilson.
- No, "Adiemus" isn't by Enya or Enigma; it's written by Karl Jenkins, and performed by a group named, appropriately enough, Adiemus. (Jenkins also wrote the music from the De Beers Diamonds ads, incidentally.)
- No, the album Deep Forest is not by Enigma, either; it's by a group named... you guessed it... Deep Forest. (And no, Deep Forest and Enigma have never collaborated, either, despite what many people think.)
- No, "88 Lines About 44 Women" was not done by They Might Be Giants. It was released by a band called The Nails. TMBG has a number of songs misattributed to them.
- No, just because the song is sung a cappella does not mean that Rockapella performed it.
- Or the Brown Derbies either. Fortunately, this seems to have been an artifact of the Napster era, and most a cappella groups are able to keep their own names on their own stuff.
- No, the soundtrack from The Rutles movies are not bootleg "lost" Beatles albums, though they are often labeled as such. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting credits come from the Rutles songs being overly close to the real thing... but they're still not the real thing.
- No, "Imagine" is not a Beatles song, despite John Lennon having been a Beatle.
- Likewise, Paul McCartney was a Beatle, but "Live and Let Die" is him with the Wings.
- In reverse, some people think that the Beatles' "Let It Be" is a John Lennon solo song - but Lennon didn't even write the song!
- No, the Sisters of Mercy did not do "Cry Little Sister". That was Gerard McMann.
- I think this came from a mislabeled album or a CDDB screw-up somewhen about the late 90's/y2k because almost every Lost Boys soundtrack I've seen out there misattributes as such and had me fooled for several years ignorantly perpetuating this misattribution.
- No, "Santa Baby" was not sung by Marilyn Monroe. That was Eartha Kitt.
- No, Sarah Brightman did not sing the theme to The Fifth Element. She also never collaborated with Enigma.
- No, Rachael Leigh Cook and company did not do the vocals on the songs from Josie And The Pussycats. Kay Hanley from Letters to Cleo did.
- No, "When The Rain Came Down" is not a duet between Kate Bush and Annie Lennox. It is by Happy Rhodes.
- No, Marilyn Manson did not do a recent cover of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)". That was Dope. Also, the original was not by Billy Idol (it was by Dead or Alive).
- And no, Eiffel 65 did not cover the song. That was Sally Can Dance.
- No, "Bitch" was not sung by Alanis Morisette. That was Meredith Brooks.
- No, Less Than Jake never covered "500 Miles". It was actually Down by Law.
- No, not all vaguely Celtic rock music is by Great Big Sea, awesome as they are.
- No, Rammstein is not the artist of
every any German Dance Metal song.
- Or the German Barbie Girl.
- And they didn't compose "Otherworld" from Final Fantasy X either. That was a Uematsu showing that he is a fan of metal.
- No, "If I Only Were A Goth" is not by Voltaire. It is by Thou Shalt Not.
- No, Enya had nothing to do with the soundtrack of Braveheart.
- Nor Titanic either, though James Horner was consciously aping her style in places.
- Subversion: The remix of the Pacman theme that's often credited to Aphex Twin? It was released by Power Pill... seems like a case of this trope, right? Except that Power Pill is a pseudonym of Richard D. James— who's better known as Aphex Twin!
- Nor has he ever produced a Tetris remix. His album "26 Mixes for Cash" however, is a compilation of rare remixes produced throughout the 90s.
- No, "The Great Commandment" and "Love is a Shield" are not by Depeche Mode (hard as that may be to believe, especially in the latter case). They're by Camouflage.
- Neither is the 1980s version of "Tainted Love". That's by Soft Cell.
- And even that's a cover of a Gloria Jones song.
- No, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was not sung by Boris Karloff. It was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft.
- Really? "And sung by Boris Karloff, too!" is in the opening credits to the original cartoon.
- Really.
- No, Sepultura never recorded with Luciano Pavarotti. That cover was made by a parody band, JBO.
- There's a ton of songs circulating in P2P networks that have been attributed to Metallica. 99% of the time, they have nothing to do with Metallica, like in the case of the Imperial March.
- No, "Gollum's Song" from The Two Towers is not sung by Björk. It's Emiliana Torrini. Yes, she sounds a lot like Björk. Yes, this is deliberate.
- No, "Edelweiss" is not an Austrian folk song. It's from The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
- No, the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway" is not the most traditional of tangos. It's from Damn Yankees by Adler and Ross.
- No, "Don't Fence Me In" is not a traditional cowboy song. It's a parody by Cole Porter.
- No, it's not "I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well" by Lit or Green Day. It's "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger.
- Another Green Day example: "Closing Time" is not Green Day. It's Semisonic.
- No, the Rock cover of "Barbie Girl" with male vocals is not by Mx Px. It's by Home Grown.
- No, Cradle of Filth NEVER did a Bloody Tears Cover. It's by Naoto Shibata PROJECT.
- No, "Cries in the Dark" isn't a song by Maaya Sakamoto. Even its name is incorrect. It's "Voices", by Akino Arai.
- No, "This Machine" is not Crush 40. It's Julien-K.
- No, Fatboy Slim never remixed Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride", although he did remix a completely unrelated song of the same title by Mighty Dub Katz. And no, Crystal Method didn't remix Steppenwolf either. That remix is by Philip Steir.
- Fatboy Slim never remixed the Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" either. That was Norman Cook.
- Tom Waits and Peter Murphy never did an Anti Christmas Song duet entitled "Christmas Sucks" - it's a song called "This Holiday Season" by Porn Orchard, which features deliberate (and good) impressions of both.
- Weezer have gotten many power-pop-influenced songs misattributed to them, but perhaps the most prominent are "Ex Girlfriend" and "Teenage Dirtbag". The former is by Self and is in fact called "Paint By Numbers", the latter is by Wheatus (The fact that the real artist is one syllable off probably didn't help things there). They never covered N.W.A.'s "Boyz-n-the Hood" either, that was Dynamite Hack.
- No, "Nothing Left To Lose" is not by Coldplay. It's by Mat Kearney. No, you're not the only one who's confused.
- Also not helped by the fact that, during the verses, his voice sounds a bit like that of Adam Duritz from Counting Crows.
- Kearney also deserves mention for "Closer To Love", which again sounds like Coldplay.
- "Jessie" by Joshua Kadison sounds so much like Elton John that radio stations running contests to "call in when we play an Elton song to win Elton tickets" were flooded with calls every time it played.
- No, "I'm The Only Gay Eskimo" is not by Tenacious D.
- No, nobody from Linkin Park contributed to Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life". The guest singer is 12 Stone's Paul McCoy. Mike Shinoda was asked to contribute vocals to the song, but declined.
- Some band named Tribal Ink has their entire discography mistaken for Linkin Park. Most notably their song "Refugee"
- Similarly, many people think that "Headstrong" by Trapt is done by Linkin Park.
- No, "Da Turdy Point Buck" is not by Da Yoopers. It's by Bananas at Large, a Wisconsin group. You're probably thinking of "Second Week of Deer Camp", which is by Da Yoopers.
- No, Jimi Hendrix did not originally sing American Woman. That was the Guess Who (No relation to The Who). There are people who think it was Lenny Kravitz, but that's another trope.
- "Wires" - it's by Athlete. Not Coldplay. No, it is. Honest.
- No, "Scotty Doesn't Know" isn't by Sum 41. It's by Lustra.
- "Rescue Me" by Fontella Bass frequently gets misattributed to Aretha Franklin due to being in a gospel-influenced r and b style similar to Franklin's signature sound.
- Martha and the Vandellas is also a popular wrong guess.
- Hands down the oddest misattribution seen on a filesharing system is Rednex's "Cotton Eye Joe" listed as being by Primus. The male vocalist in Rednex arguably sounds slightly similar to Les Claypool, but otherwise, completely different styles of music.
- No, "Half the Man I Used To Be" isn't by Nirvana, it's the Stone Temple Pilots. And the song is called "Creep".
- No, Children Of Bodom never did a cover of "The Final Countdown". Depending on the version you've heard, it was either Norther or Dispatched.
- For some reason people think "Cum on Feelz the Noise" is from Twisted Sister, it's actually Quiet Riot
- No, The song "Wake Me" is not a bootleg Alice In Chains demo. It's by Grey Daze, Chester Bennington's old band.
- For a time Devo seemed to get pretty much any synth-heavy Eighties One Hit Wonder attached to them. Defunct filesharing program Audiogalaxy used to list band's most downloaded songs on their system: The number one most downloaded Devo song by far? "Safety Dance", which is in fact by Men Without Hats.
- No, "Hero" was not performed by Nickelback. It was performed by Chad Kroeger (of Nickelback, just not for this song) and Saliva's Josey Scott.
- In the same vein, "Her Diamonds", "Lonely No More" and at least one other song are not by matchbox twenty. Yes, Rob Thomas is matchbox twenty's lead singer, but these are from his solo album. This begs the question, "Why make a solo album if all your songs are gonna sound the same as your band's songs?"
- No, Utada Hikaru never recorded an English version of her song "First Love". It's a cover by Jessa Zaragoza.
- She didn't sing "Princess Mononoke's Main Theme", either. Vocals are provided by Yoshikazu Mera (Japanese version) or Sasha Lezard (English version).
- No, "Lemon Tree" isn't by Oasis. It's by Fool's Garden.
- No, "Detachable Penis" isn't by The Flaming Lips, Primus, or The Butthole Surfers. It's by King Missile.
- No, "That's Not My Name" is not by Avril Lavigne, it just sounds like it. It's by the Ting Tings.
- Which makes the title kind of ironic, now that you mention it.
- No, Stuck in the Middle With You is not by Bob Dylan. It's by Stealers Wheel, though one might be forgiven for thinking that Gerry Rafferty sounds a lot like Dylan.
- No, Sultans of Swing is not by Bob Dylan, either. That's by Dire Straits.
- No, "Cat's in the Cradle" is not by Cat Stevens. It's by Harry Chapin (or perhaps Ugly Kid Joe or Ricky Skaggs).
- Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" was misattributed to Cat Stevens on this very wiki's Ear Worm page.
- No, the "Carmina Burana" never had anything to do with Mozart. They were written as poems centuries before his time, and set to music by Carl Orff a century after his time.
- For that matter, not every classical piece is Mozart or Tchaikovsky. (It's all right to love Russian composers, but don't misattribute songs to them like in Lady In The Dark.)
- Nor did Richard Wagner compose "In the Hall of the Mountain King" or "O Fortuna"
- For the last time, the famous part of Carmina Burana IS O Fortuna!
- No, that hilariously ironic cover of "Gin and Juice" was not performed by Phish or OAR. It was The Gourds.
- Many Motown/Doo Wop/Oldies R&B songs have been misattributed to either the Temptations, the Four Tops, or Marvin Gaye. One of the most frustrating examples to her is how people think that the Temptations do "In the Still of the Nite" which is actually by The Five Satins.
- No, "Right Here Waiting" isn't by Bryan Adams; it's by Richard Marx.
- No, not every song on the Bob And Tom Show is by Heywood Banks or Rodney Carrington.
- No, neither Limp Bizkit nor Disturbed nor Godsmack ever did a song together called Blood in my Eyes; that was a group called Bloodstore Hoods.
- No, "Walking in Memphis" is not by Billy Joel. It's not by Michael McDonald either. It's by Marc Cohn. Or Lonestar.
- On file sharing services, just about any Europop-sounding song with female harmony vocals will be attributed to Abba. Many of the songs mislabelled in this fashion are actually by the British group Brotherhood of Man.
- Not Northern Lights though, that is by British classical fusion group Renaissance. Admittedly, they didn't have the usual orchestral backing on that one, and the synths did sound a bit Abba-esque.
- So that synth-heavy new wave song "Cars" must be the theme song of the Cars, right? Wrong. It's by Gary Numan.
- No, the song "Butterfly" is not by Aqua, but rather by a Swedish group called Smile.dk.
- You know that fun bouncy tropical-sounding song with the chorus "If he wanna rock, he rocks/If he wanna roll, he rolls" that you think is by Jason Mraz? It's not. It's called "Rock & Roll" and it's by Eric Hutchinson.
- No, Eric Clapton did not do the famous riff in "Layla." That was Duane Allman. Clapton only did the solo in the middle.
- Yet another from this very Wiki: "Physical" was by Olivia Newton-John, not Madonna.
- No, "Low Rider" is not performed by ZZ Top. That was War.
- No, every single reggae song by a Jamaican guy was not sung by Bob Marley. This seems to be a problem on You Tube.
- No, Jeff Foxworthy only wished he did Here's Your Sign. The sketch is actually by Bill Engvall.
- Thanks to the Blue Collar comedy tour putting both guys on the bill, this mistake is a little less common now.
- A bit of Misattributed Relative also applies to these two: no, Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall are not cousins. They're good friends, but are not related.
- Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You" tends to get credited to Iggy Pop - his vocal style on that particular song is similar enough that All Music Guide called it an "Iggy Pop tribute", it was his only U.S. hit, and the fact that Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life" ended up having a sudden resurgence in popularity the next year due to it's use in Trainspotting may have had something to do with it as well. The song occasionally gets credited to Urge Overkill too.
- No, "Dream On" was not performed by Led Zeppelin. That was Aerosmith.
- No, "Happy Together" was not performed by The Beatles. That was The Turtles.
- No, not every trance song with "Cascada Remix" on the end was not done by the group themselves. Most of them had at least one of the DJs who work on the songs remix them, but they are not sung by the singer, Natalie Horler. This includes "Castles in the Sky", "Magic Summer Night", "7 Years And 50 Days", "Piece Of Heaven", "Shut Up", and "Underneath The Stars".
- No, "Careless Whisper" is not by Wham!. It is a George Michael solo recording; Andrew Ridgeley did not perform on the track (although Ridgeley co-wrote it).
- However, it was officially released (and reached #1) in the USA as being by "Wham! featuring George Michael", so this one's quite excusable (at least on the part of the public - the record company, however, are stinking liars).
- A rare case of a simultaneous Misattributed Song and a Mondegreen, which is ALSO Refrain From Assuming: David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is not by John Lennon, it's not called "Ground Control to Major John", and the chorus doesn't even SAY John, it's TOM!
- Another Bowie-related example: "All the Young Dudes" is by Mott the Hoople, though it's no wonder people get confused since Bowie wrote it, produced it and sang the chorus.
- No, the theme from Gremlins is not by Danny Elfman, Gremlins was released before his first actual film score. It was composed by the late Jerry Goldsmith.
- No, Pachelbel's Canon is not by Mozart, nor is it in D minor. Yes, it really was tagged as such on a file-sharing network.
- No, Corey Vidal did not sing, or write, the "Star Wars (John Williams is The Man)" video that made him famous. He was lip-synching to the work of a comedy/a cappella group, Moosebutter. (To be fair, Moosebutter were quite obscure before Corey's video went viral and tripled their publicity.)
- No, "Emotion" (the one later covered by Destiny's Child) is not by the Bee Gees. You'd be forgiven for thinking it is, considering they wrote the song, produced it, sang backup, and released their own version decades later. But the original artist is still Samantha Sang. Yes, that's an actual woman singing. Once again, an understandable mistake.
- No, "Sheila" was not done by Buddy Holly. It's by Tommy Roe.
- No, that "Read a Book" rap is not by Lil Jon; it's by Bomani "D'Mite" Armah. It's an easy mistake to make, though, given that his... distinctive rapping style is parodied perfectly.
- No, "Little Old Lady from Pasadena", "Surf City", and "Dead Man's Curve" weren't by The Beach Boys. That was Jan and Dean.
- Confusion about the song "Surf City" is perhaps understandable, given that The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson co-wrote the song and sang backup vocals on it.
- And the Beach Boys did do a cover of "Little Old Lady" on one of their live albums (although the Jan and Dean version is the one you're more likely to hear on the radio).
- No, none of the many Lutheran chorale melodies attributed to J.S. Bach were actually written by him; he merely wrote harmony and counterpoint. (The end of Berg's Violin Concerto, however, does count as a Bach quotation since it uses his harmonization of "Es ist genug.")
- Occasionally, people mistakenly think that "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell is a Michael Jackson song, mostly due to Michael singing the song's chorus.
- Speaking of Michael Jackson... well, is there only one person in the world who once thought that "Dancing Easy" was by him? (Excuse me for believing that; I was only a kid and not very good at discerning voices when I first heard said song.)
- No, Jimi Hendrix did not cover Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". That version was by Frank Zappa.
- Especially as, you know, Hendrix was dead when Stairway was first recorded.
- No, Cannibal Corpse and GWAR never teamed up to make a song called "We Are Your Enemy"; the song was done by Dying Fetus, alone.
- No,Disturbed, Static-X and Slipknot never worked together on a song called "Awake"; it was solely done by The Clay People.
- This seems to happen a lot with Slipknot; "Father" is actually by Lollipop Lust Kill, and "Fuck the World" is by Insane Clown Posse... cue Wall Banger.
- Although Slipknot does have a song that is mistakenly called Fuck the World which is properly titled "Surfacing".
- Similarly, "Pain" is not by Slipknot; it's by Soulfly.
- Bands other than Hayseed Dixie have covered rock music in a bluegrass style. The effect is so strong, even non-parody/non-cover bluegrass is sometimes attributed to them.
- Recent one: Paramore does not have a song called "Again". That's by Flyleaf. This one's forgiveable, as they sound almost exactly alike.
- No, "Eye of the Tiger" is not by Journey. It is by Survivor. People have made this mistake because Dave Bickler sounds a lot like Steve Perry.
- No, "You're The Best" from The Karate Kid is not by Survivor. It's by Joe Esposito. (Survivor does sing the "official" theme to the movie, "The Moment of Truth".)
- The Knack's "My Sharona" occasionally gets credited to The Clash. Possibly because "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" sounds vaguely like it, or because the band names are somewhat similar sounding.
- No, Ne-Yo didn't sing a recent R & B song called "Nothing". That was FDM.
- An example of a misattributed album: "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys is not on the album Pet Sounds. Yes, it was recorded during the sessions for that album, but it was intended for Smile, which was shelved, and the song was eventually put on the album Smiley Smile.
- I never, ever thought I'd have to say this, but, no, the song "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden has nothing to do with the band Butthole Surfers, except for kinda having the same initials(?).
- A common manifestation of this trope is songs being credited to a band which are actually solo recordings by one of the band's members. Examples include "Imagine" (often attributed to The Beatles, actually a John Lennon solo song) and "If You Love Somebody" (often attributed to The Police, actually a solo song by Sting).
- Half of the free world persists in believing that "Live and Let Die" is a Beatles song. It's by Paul McCartney and Wings.
- No, That ska version of the Tetris theme is not by The Toasters or Mr. Bungle. To make things even more confusing, there are several different ska versions of the theme; one's by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, the other is by Melting Pot.
- And one probably solely for Canadians: No, "The War of 1812" and "The Toronto Song" are not by The Arrogant Worms. That was another band called Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie (admittedly, not a good name for a band). Both groups explicitly say so on their website.
- No, "Kissing in the Rain" on the soundtrack for Great Expectations is neither written nor sung by Tori Amos, though she did contribute to other songs in the film. This track is written by Patrick Doyle with vocals by Miriam Stockley.
- No, Nine Inch Nails never did a song called "Angel". That's by Vinyl Sun.
- A similar case: there's a song called "Angel" purported to be by Type O Negative. While it has a similar style to Type O, it's not them; it's another Gothic Metal band named Tears of Passion.
- Michelle Branch's "All You Wanted" is often labelled as "When You're Gone" by Avril Lavigne because the latter's title is the former's last line, and their voices are remarkably similar. Lavigne does have a song called "When You're Gone", but it's a completely different song.
- No, George Strait is not the singer of "A Little More Country Than That." That's a new singer named Easton Corbin.
- No, "What I Like About You" is NOT by The Ramones. It's by The Romantics.
- The remix of the Imperial March from Star Wars: Force Commander is known as the Rage Mix, but it's not by Rage Against The Machine, as many uploaders claim.
- No, the song Popcorn is not by Kraftwerk. That version is by Hot Butter. Gershon Kingsley did the original.
- No, Trent Reznor and Roger Waters have never collaborated, on a live version of "Comfortably Numb" or any other project. If you find a song on a P 2 P network labelled as this, it's typically just Pink Floyd's own live version from Delicate Sound of Thunder, which neither Reznor nor Waters appears on. In fact, the melody on the verses of that version, which is quite different from that of the original studio recording, is a version Waters has never played on, with or without Pink Floyd.
- No, Steely Dan did not do "Still The One". The very idea they would ever do something that optimistic is laughable. The song is actually by Orleans.
- No, House of the Rising Sun was not done by the Rolling Stones. The most famous version was done by the Animals, though it's much older, with a recording even done by Leadbelly.
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