Soundcheck

Whoa, a corporate entertainment product (sorry, I meant "fresh and original artist") resorting to repackaging someone else's older material and selling it as new? Color me surprised. Today's music is a joke. Maybe I'm getting older, but these days, it all sounds the same to me - boring, lifeless, cranked out product.

Hi,

I am a music journalist (print/radio) from Nepal and have covered similar issues in Nepal several times over the years. And now that I am back in Nepal from New York, I manage to listen to you guys online.

Stealing music is nothing new in South Asia, especially with Bollywood. In fact, the industry has always been comfortable copying music for soundtracks just as much as they have been copying plots for movies. Its become a lot better now, but for much of the 80s and 90s, it was just shameful.

Stealing music has been a problem in Nepali pop music too, everyone from Santana to random Korean bands have had their melodies used as original works here-- hit singles for the respective Nepali artists both times, released more than a decade apart. Sometime even established artists decide to use "sample tracks" from CDs and later get caught! But we have had some good runs of great artists over the years. But the industry as a whole now seems to be catering to people who will pay to have their albums released by the labels and the labels will oblige regardless of how bad the album is.

I thought I'd share this article, 'Broken Harmony', we did in 2004 about stealing music in Nepal:

"..Our artists are not giving credit where and when its due while they take credit for what isn't theirs...." (from the article below)

http://www.wavemag.com.np/issue/article1636.html

Of course, copying tunes has been part of classical music too. Mahler's Symphony No. 3 opens with the same melody heard in the finale to Brahms's Symphony No. 1. Of course, Mahler takes the gentle theme of Brahms and turns it into a dark, bold statement blared out on eight unison horns. And in the process it becomes original.

For the most part, accusations of "plagiarism" in music is bogus. There are twelve notes in the western music scale. You don't think that maybe once in a while you're not going to hear similar sounding melodies or chord arrangements. Also pop music is supposed to be accessible, so of course common musical statements are going to be heard.

But of course you will also keep hearing accusations of "plagiarism" in pop music because those doing the shouting want to get their taste of the huge royalties pop hits win.

Is it me or does it seem that Alicia Keys "Falling" *borrows* heavily from James Brown's "It's A Man's World"? Keys is credited with writing a great pop record but it seems to me that she was listening to her mother's records a little too much when she came up with the inspiration for the song.

I agree with Jeffrey Slott and the twelve notes.

Pop will continue to "borrow" always. In bringing up the recent Avril Lavigne song, I think the bigger issue is the content of and video for the song.

What an abomination.

The message of this song to young girls is frightening.

Why aren't music copyright cases decided by musicians, who would arguably hear differences more clearly, and not be convinced by a similar rhythm (for example)?

Hey Brian! I'm not sure if this has ever gone to court or not but the band Jet rips off everyone it seems to me! One of their songs sounds just like Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" and another has lyrics that are reminiscent of the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie".

Stealing of melodies was commonplace in the 50's and 60's original rock and roll era. The writers at Cameo-Parkway records were the kings of this. Most of these rips were used as B-Sides and the DJ's could usually tell what record was not an original.

Two Bobby Rydell flips come to mind; "Cherie" was a rip of the Diamonds cover of "Little Darling" and "The Fish" was a blatant sound-a-like from the Shirelles' "Mama Said".

The exploration of artistic 'plagiarism' -- and particularly the possibility of artists 'plagiarizing themselves' -- points to an intricate relationship between style and individuality in creative inspiration.

The greater the artist, the more his/her 'style' is on the one hand representative of its time and place -- and on the other hand absolutely individual.

And the greatest individual works on the one hand continue the developing style of the artist -- and on the other are absolutely new and unpredictable.

Creative inspiration seems to draw on sources that are at once both universal and individual.

"Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock." Emerson

[The first of these insights was articulated by the wonderful Hungarian philosopher Georg Kuehlewind -- links at www.asnyc.org/gk.htm -- during one of his last talks in NYC, "The Melody of Life," given shortly before he died last year. He was referring to classical music: the greater composers are more clearly representative of their period and their culture than lesser lights.]

Strange, when I first heard it I thought it sounded more like Toni Basil's 'Hey Mickey' from the 80's....

one thing that gives me hope is she's young and will grow out of it.

First of all, when will so-called journalists STOP associating Avril Levigne with punk? This plastic, manufactured twit has as much to do with punk as did Laurence Welk. Calling her a "punk princess" is nothing short of regurgitated marketing. Public radio is supposed to be better thant that. Emphasis on "supposed to be."

As for the current controversy, what bothers me most is that the Rubinoos were a fine band that deserves to be remembered great rock n roll recorded when they were labelmates of Jonathan Richman on the long defunct Beserkely label. They were also a mercilessly tight live band. Not that any of this matters, compared to a juicy scandal involving a Britney Spears clone. Sigh.