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SoaringStarman Since: Jul, 2023
Theworldsbiggestbruh Impaler Event Since: Jul, 2020
Impaler Event
Oct 14th 2023 at 5:36:57 PM •••

Other Suspiciously Similar Songs:

Just a few I've uncovered...

  • "Long Stick Goes Boom" by Krokus → "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)" by Beastie Boys
  • "Panama" by Van Halen → "The Heat is On" by Glenn Frey (the choruses specifically)
  • "Good Times Roll" by The Cars → "Turn Up The Radio" by Autograph (most notable in the intro)
  • "Need You Tonight" by INXS → "Break My Heart" by Dua Lipa (in the choruses)

Edited by Theworldsbiggestbruh overdrawn at the suicide bank
Snicka Since: Jun, 2011
Jan 6th 2019 at 12:26:48 PM •••

Why is this YMMV? As far as I see there are two distinct tropes here:

  • Intentional reference to a song, with a few notes tweaked and the lyrics changed to avoid copyright problems (e.g. "Disco Girl" from Gravity Falls being a parody of "Dancing Queen" by Music/ABBA). This is not subjective and shouldn't be YMMV.
  • Accidental similarity between two songs, which is either YMMV (since how similar they are is subjective), Just for Fun, or not tropable at all.

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TheDeadSkin Since: Oct, 2010
Feb 26th 2019 at 5:01:43 AM •••

True. And the pages are cluttered with purely unintentional examples.

There's a difference between something like all of Kenji Yamamoto's Dragon Ball work, and Weird Al's "Virus Alert" sounding like an image song from Gaoranger (???), but... I guess many didn't get the memo.

unokkun The Unok Since: Dec, 2011
The Unok
May 28th 2012 at 1:51:33 PM •••

Does anyone know roughly how far you can go with making two songs similar before it's considered copyright infringement? (In court, at least)

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Kombucha Since: Jun, 2013
Jan 14th 2017 at 3:20:10 AM •••

I think the distinction between "suspiciously similar" and "the same" should be made clear too. Is "suspiciously similar" where a piece of music is intended to evoke another work, or where a song has literally been used and not copied exactly?

TBarned Since: Nov, 2018
Nov 12th 2018 at 2:21:21 PM •••

Maybe it's listed, but I find no mention of Thrills that I Can't Forget, sung in 1925 by Edgar and Boaz, I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes, by the Carter Family in 1929, That Great Speckled Bird, sung by Roy Acuff in 1936, The Wild Side of Life, by Hank Thompson in 1952, and It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Women, by Kitty Wells in 1952. These 5 songs all used the same melody. How did they bypass infringement issues?

CloverGoldngreen Since: Jan, 2011
Jun 8th 2011 at 4:25:30 PM •••

Does anyone find Jimmy Hart versions of songs jarring to listen to? To this troper, they're basically the musical equivalent of Uncanny Valley, or at the very least, like an off-key rendition of the song that they're a Jimmy Hart of.

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RobTFirefly Since: Jul, 2009
Jun 11th 2011 at 1:47:34 AM •••

YES. You are not alone in this, the cognitive dissonance can be headache-inducing to this troper as well.

https://robvincent.net
CloverGoldngreen Since: Jan, 2011
Jun 13th 2011 at 8:31:31 AM •••

I don't know which is worse either, if it's a Jimmy Hart of a song you like, or of a song you don't like. The best examples I can think of for both are these two sketches from Robot Chicken (which is one of my favorite shows despite being a big offender of this trope). For songs I like, there's the sketch where Spawn engages in a fiddle duel with some demon (I don't read Spawn, so I don't know any character names), the song being a Jimmy Hart of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". For songs I don't like, there's that sketch with King Arthur and his knights were getting advice from Sir Mixalot that they need to make their table round to the tune of an off-key "Baby got Back".

98.192.97.233 Since: Dec, 1969
Mar 26th 2011 at 6:22:51 AM •••

It's called Megatracks (or maybe Megatrax, I forget). When I was in TV, we had like, 100 C Ds full of Megatracks. If you wanted AC/DC, there was an AC/DC soundalike. If you wanted Hendrix, there was Hendrix-esque. So on and so forth.

silenig Since: Aug, 2010
Jan 23rd 2011 at 4:02:32 PM •••

What is THE best soundtrack ever heard in a Zelda game? An early trailer of Twilight Princess featured a pastiche of Basil Poledouris' Conan the Barbarian. It's the definition of this trope, it's Conan, with a few changed notes.

Prfnoff Since: Jan, 2001
Apr 15th 2010 at 8:30:11 PM •••

Interesting note, but this trope is about music, not lyrics:

  • In a bizarre case of Truth in Television, "change a word, take a third" (referring to the way writing royalties are calculated) meant that often changing a single word in the lyrics was enough to justify a writing credit, a proportion of the writing royalties, and a share of those for any covers that happen to include your word.

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