"I wish I found some better sounds no one's ever heard / I wish I had a better voice and sang some better words/ I wish I found some chords in an order that is new/ I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sang" - Twenty-One Pilots, "Stressed Out"
It would indeed be nice if every newly released song sounded completely different from its ancestors. But in today's day and age, where everything is stored online somewhere, it's almost impossible make music that doesn't pretty much already exist. According to people who know more about music than I do, there are over 100 million songs in existence. To put that number in perspective, there are only about 8400 possible chords on the piano. Mathematically, it becomes really easy to find two songs with the same chord pattern, especially since there are only so many chords that sound good together.
But there are some songs that are so noticeably connected, not just in the basic structure but in rhythm and melody, that you wonder whether or not the artist went ahead and got the original artist's approval. I don't intend to call out any musicians here; I only present to you some pairs of songs that I've observed to be subtle (or in some cases, not-so-subtle) sound-alikes. In all cases, the older song is named first.
I'll leave it up to you to decide: Musical plagiarism? Or is it creative coincidence?
Pair #1: Def Leppard and One Direction
A lot of these probably go unnoticed because the two songs come from such completely different genres and time periods. I'm guessing most female 14-year-old One Direction fans don't also have a crush on all five members of an Eighties hard rock band. But that doesn't mean that Harry Styles and company haven't heard this classic:
You may not notice it at first, but wait for the chorus:
What do you think? Do you hear it? Is it possible that the shorter-haired lads from Britain unintentionally paid tribute to their long-haired compatriots?
Pair #2: Modest Mouse and Lupe Fiasco
As far as I know, Lupe actually did get the rights to this indie classic. But the way he used it is cool. You'll notice the choruses right away; just replace "we'll all float" with "the show goes" and they're basically identical. But the other aspect of the song Lupe adapted is much more subtle.
See if you can catch it:
Hear that little plucky, high-pitched guitar riff? In the Modest Mouse version, it gives the song a quirky, sad, indie feel. But Lupe sped it up, added some echo and other things, and voila, something to rap over.
Pair #3: Tom Petty and Sam Smith
Recipe: Take 25-year-old soft rock hit. Remove country twang and swingy rhythm. Switch guitars for piano. Sing about a complicated relationship. Sprinkle generous amounts of drama. Boom! Four hundred million views on YouTube! Multiple Grammy Awards! It's that simple.
Of course, it helps if you have the voice of an angel. Otherwise, good luck with that recipe.
Pair #4: Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Jet
You have to go to the solo of "Rollover DJ" (at about 1:47 in the video) to hear this one. It uses three different components of BTO's classic rock staple: the drumbeat, a variation of the rhythm guitar riff, and even the two quickly-strummed chords on the lead guitar. It's unique enough that this one's probably a coincidence. The mathematical odds were never in their favor.
Pair #5: Dion and Meghan Trainor
This one's just ridiculous. I know the Dion song is old, but it's still pretty popular. "Dear Future Husband" is a slightly lower pitch, but other than that, the music is pretty much identical. Both songs even have a slowed down vocal solo at the beginning. But I'm going to give Meghan Trainor the benefit of the doubt here. She probably time-traveled back to the Fifties, wrote this song for Dion and his Belmonts (whatever that is) using the code name "Sue" in order to put herself in a negative light and escape unwanted attention from all the greasers, and then returned to the present and recorded a response song, in which she regained her dignity by mandating a list of knowledge requirements for any future dating prospects.
That's pretty much the only explanation.
Pair #6: Journey and EVERY OTHER ARTIST EVER.
So, there are these four chords that almost every pop artist ends up using at some point in their career. To be fair, it's probably because they sound really good, especially when you add some other notes and make it a whole progression, like in the piano riff of "Don't Stop Believing." Fun fact: It's also the four notes in that Bell Tower iPhone alarm/ringtone that everyone uses.
These three guys called Axis of Awesome created a brilliant mashup to prove this. Sure enough, the songs flow into one another seamlessly. (Warning: this is slightly NSFW)
Bonus Pair: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet Song
Seriously, people?? WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? Where are our morals and our sense of integrity? Somewhere, an inventive young mother or kindergarten teacher is making trillions of dollars in royalties just because she knew her ABCs. It's a cryin' shame. Despicable.
