Songs that sound awfully similar.

...I like "Undone". Although I can theoretically see where you are coming from.

Seems like The Offspring get picked on a lot in this thread, but here goes:

Does anyone else think the vocal phrasings and chord progression in "I Choose" (1997) sound kind of samey compared to "Idiots Rule" by Jane's Addiction? (1988).

Interestingly, Ixnay On The Hombre, the album "I Choose" comes from, was produced by Dave Jerden, who produced JA's Nothing's Shocking (as well as Ritual de lo Habitual). So I wonder if that song ended sounding just a bit more like "Idiots Rule" than it would have otherwise because of the production. Update: I just gave "I Choose" a fresh listen ^note I had Ixnay when it was new, but at the time the only Jane's Addiction song I'd heard was "Jane Says", which isn't that representative of the rest of their stuff: I don't know if they were intentionally mimicking that particular song, but it definitely feels like they were trying to do something in the Jane's Addiction style.

edited 12th Sep '14 6:42:23 PM by MikeK

The Jetzons "When the Sun Goes Down" sounds similar to the Marble Garden zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Someone even did a mash-up of it. This is probably no coincidence, since it was discovered that "Hard Times" is almost identical to the Ice Cap Zone.

The intro to Rage Against The Machine's "Ashes In The Fall" vs. the theme to Halloween. This actually makes the RATM song cooler in my book - I've seen videos where people get a dot matrix printer to play songs, and the start of "Ashes In The Fall" makes me think of what a dot matrix printer playing the Halloween theme would be like... But it's of course actually coming from an electric guitar.

edited 14th Sep '14 5:03:53 PM by MikeK

I've been hearing a lot of "mix station" type music at work lately, and I finally had to look up that "Drown Me In Love" song that always tricks me into thinking it's going to be "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band. Turns out it's "Come On Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson.

Oh, I've also realized "Staring At The Sun" by U2 reminds me of "Under The Milky Way" by The Church. I believe someone already pointed out similarities between that same U2 song and the chorus of "Feel Good Inc.", and now I'd kind of like to hear someone do a mashup-style cover of all three.

edited 18th Sep '14 7:03:29 PM by MikeK

I love OneRepublic, but you can't tell me that "I Lived" doesn't sound like "Home" by Phillip Phillips.

Styx - "Come Sail Away" and Dinosaur Jr. - "Feel the Pain" sound kinda similar to one another tbh.

Some parts of Merle Haggard's "Rainbow Stew" sound like "Big Rock Candy Mountains".

Weird realization re: 70s female sung pop ballads: Samantha Sang’s “Emotion” starts off with the same four notes as Melissa Manchester’s “Midnight Blue.”

Colbie Caillat's "Try" has always inexplicably made me think of Christmas... I've finally figured out that it's because the verse melody is sort of vaguely similar to "Carol of the Bells".

edited 11th Oct '14 9:52:22 PM by MikeK

Another one involving a current pop hit: the chorus to "Bang Bang" by Jessie J oddly reminds me of part of the verse of Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go": Specifically, compare "You put the boom-boom into my heart" to "bang bang into the room".

edited 23rd Oct '14 11:07:10 PM by MikeK

Another Pop-punk group.

Does the "City of the Damned" segment in Green Day's "Jesus of Suburbia" sound a tiny bit similar to "On With The Show" by Mötley Crüe?

And "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams.

And "Tales of Another Broken Home" sounds like Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire".

Maybe it's just my ears:

"(Let's Get) Physical" by Olivia Newton-John, and "Gloria" by Laura Branigan;

"Killing Me Softly With His Song" (especially the Lori Lieberman original, versus the Roberta Flack cover) and "Wild World" (Cat Stevens).

Also, "You Better You Bet" (The Who) and "Let My Love Open the Door" (Pete Townshend)

edited 6th Nov '14 7:47:33 PM by Boston

Wait, the Roberta Flack version was a cover?

From The Other Wiki:

""Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The song was written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman, who recorded the song in late 1971. It was a number-one hit in 1973 for Roberta Flack. The song has since been covered by numerous artists."

It's an interesting chain of songs; "That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly inspired "American Pie" by Don Mac Lean, which inspired "Killing Me Soft with His Song"; very different song styles and textures, and they each completely stand on their own, yet they're intertwined.

edited 6th Nov '14 7:52:12 PM by Boston

Hmm.

Unrelated:

Anyone else hearing the Teen Titans theme song at 2:27?

For that matter, “Gloria” was also a cover.

The opening chords to "If I Had $1000000" sound a lot like the Darius Rucker version of "Wagon Wheel".

One I realized yesterday: "Revolution" by Judas Priest (2005) has almost the exact same guitar riff as "Mountain Song" by Janes Addiction (1988).

edited 7th Dec '14 12:04:22 PM by djbj

The intros to Nazareth's Last Months Messiah and Foreigner's Hot Blooded.

What's sort of interesting is that one of the youtube comments on the Priest song points out that both are similar to "Reasons Love" by UFO, which came first.

I noticed that. The UFO riff definitely has the same (or at least very similar) pattern and progression, but it's played a bit differently. Whereas the JA & JP riffs are played at a similar speed with a similar guitar tone in possibly the same key (I don't really have the right musical ear for those kind of specifics).

Apparently, a Catholic musician unintentionally created a mass setting whose first few notes sound exactly like the theme to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.