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Muse vs. John Williams
Muse - one of my favourite bands - were once one of the most original bands of their generation. Although indebted heavily to Radiohead and Jeff Buckley as musical and vocal inspirations, they had artfully fused alt. rock and classical music so artfully to create something unique and quite epic. However, recently they have been guilty of a number of thefts from other artists. The saxophone from Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' in 'Panic Station' (even played on record by the same saxophonist who performed on Wonder's Talking Book album), Brian May's disjointed, staccato soloing style on 'Madness' (not to mention the chord progression similar melody to Queen's 'I Want to Break Free' in the same song) to name just a few.
However, as a great lover of John Williams film scores, I was astonished when I listened to Muse's 'United States of Eurasia' to hear, almost note-for-note, the main motif from 'Parade of the Slave Children' from the score of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. See the links below and let me know what you think!
Muse - United States of Eurasia (1:33)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5-K51jHQ6k
John Williams - Parade of the Slave Children (from start)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOnSXw9coq8
Liam Payne ft. Quavo vs. Shaggy ft. Rikrok
Listening to the radio yesterday, I couldn't help but feel sorry for people like Ed Sheeran. Imagine being him, getting in the car to drive to your lawyer's office to tie up the final royalties split on 'Shape of You', and Liam Payne's new single 'Strip That Down' comes over the airwaves. "Oh come on!" I imagine he would exclaim at the pre-chorus's ascending melody interspersed with lower spoken lines. "Are you serious?!", he would ask of the melody on the third line which descends rather than ascends. "Oh, I am telling my lawyer about this", he would assert when he heard the first line of the chorus. And he would be well within his rights to do so, because all of these elements have been lifted almost note-for-note from Shaggy's 2000 hit 'It Wasn't Me'.
Perhaps Mr. Payne should take Shaggy's sage advice if accused of infringement.
Liam Payne ft. Quavo - Strip That Down (0.45)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSW2M-BB1NE
Shaggy ft. Rikrok - It Wasn't Me (1.03)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g5Hz17C4is
Lady Gaga vs. Rita Ora
Rita Ora's latest single 'Anywhere' is strikingly similar in its melodic style to the work of Lady Gaga on the whole, but the chorus bears particular resemblance to that of 'Bad Romance'. Though Ora's song is a bit slower in BPM, a key lower and with some syllabic differences in the lyrics, the notes of the melody follow an almost identical route to Lady Gaga's 2009 hit:
Rita Ora - Anywhere (chorus at 0.29)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksdAs4LBRq8
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (chorus at 1.28)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I