Page 3 of 6 FirstFirst 123456 LastLast
Results 51 to 75 of 129

Thread: Ten Hits You May Not Know Were Cover Versions

  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Progbear View Post
    I don’t know if it was a little boost from Quiet Riot having phenomenal success with their tunes, but Slade did get a belated punch of chart success in the USA circa the mid 80s with “Run Runaway” and “My Oh My.” Neither were huge hits, but they got a good amount of airplay.
    At least in theory, the Quiet Riot connection did come into play. Slade's new Stateside record company emphasized them as the originators of Cum On Feel The Noize in their publicity blitz for Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply. And it didn't hurt matters that MTV got behind the band and played the two videos you cite in heavy rotation.

  2. #52
    I didn't know Alone was a cover. I'll be danged. Heart was doing all that Diane Warren/Holly Knight type crap back then, I just assumed it was one of those.

  3. #53
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    42°09′30″N 71°08′43″W
    Posts
    6,263
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    What the hell does my age have to do with it?! Just because you and I know that Bruce Springsteen recorded the original version of Blinded By The Light doesn't mean the millions of Americans who listen to classic rock radio know it.

    And I can promise it's not really all that "common knowledge" except to music geeks, just like it's not common knowledge to the average person that Hound Dog was originally sung by a woman.
    There's no reason to get upset. I've never spent a dime on either Manfred Mann, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac or Elvis Presley, yet I knew all about it.

  4. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    There's no reason to get upset. I've never spent a dime on either Manfred Mann, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac or Elvis Presley, yet I knew all about it.
    Who's getting upset? I'm just saying that for the majority of the people out there don't "know all about it". Like I said just because you know that Black Magic Woman was originally a Fleetwood Mac song doesn't mean everyone else knows it.

  5. #55
    Suspended
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    32S 116E
    Posts
    0
    The fact that Blinded By the Light and Black Magic Woman are both covers shold not really surprise anyone. Santana's hit songs were mostly not self-penned. Manfred mann did many covers - in particuilar Manfred Mann himself was clearly a big fan of Bob Dylan. Springsteen when he arrived on the scene was hailed as "the new Bob Dylan", a tag that had proved the kiss of death for many songwriters but which he successfully managed to shrug off, so it was anatural progression for MM to record Springsteen.

  6. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by bob_32_116 View Post
    The fact that Blinded By the Light and Black Magic Woman are both covers shold not really surprise anyone. Santana's hit songs were mostly not self-penned. Manfred mann did many covers - in particuilar Manfred Mann himself was clearly a big fan of Bob Dylan.
    Well, yeah that's definitely true. Mann was very eclectic which his covers too, I know there was John Prine song on Get Yer Rocks Off (the US edition of Messin'), and he did The Police's Demolition Man, amongst other things. The very first Bob Dylan song I ever remember hearing (and it was years before I knew it was a Dylan song) was Mann's rendition of The Mighty Quinn. That's absolutely got to be one of the most joyous sounding recordings I've ever heard in my life.

    And while we're talking about people who rely extensively on other songwriters, there's always Jeff Beck. It seems like most of the pieces on his albums are written by the other musicians he's working with, or in fact are cover tunes (eg People Get Ready, Going Down, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, Cause We've Ended As Lovers, I Ain't Superstitious, I Can't Give Back The Love I Feel For You, etc). But it doesn't take anything away from how amazingly great his records tend to be.

    Quote Originally Posted by bob_32_116 View Post
    Springsteen when he arrived on the scene was hailed as "the new Bob Dylan", a tag that had proved the kiss of death for many songwriters but which he successfully managed to shrug off, so it was anatural progression for MM to record Springsteen.
    I recall reading years ago, I can't remember if it was Springsteen or John Mellencamp, but one of those guys was reportedly asked once "What's it like being the new Bob Dylan", and the answer was "What's it like being punched in the face?!".

    I remember there was a period back in the early 90's, I think, where Rolling Stone would run these sort of "political cartoon" deals, but they were typically about musicians, like these sort of full page things. One was called Mr Guthrie's Class, or something like that. It depicted Woody Guthrie as an elementary school teacher, with Dylan, Springsteen, Mellencamp, and I forget who else as his students.

  7. #57
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    4,485
    Quote Originally Posted by Progbear View Post
    I don’t know if it was a little boost from Quiet Riot having phenomenal success with their tunes, but Slade did get a belated punch of chart success in the USA circa the mid 80s with “Run Runaway” and “My Oh My.” Neither were huge hits, but they got a good amount of airplay.
    Slade did make an effort to break the US market in the mid 70s to no avail and to find their UK audience had been depleted in their time away. Actually it seems to me the 'glam rock' thing did not translate in general- most of the acts had maybe one big hit and that was it, whereas here it was hit after hit. Bowie probably did the best- quite fitting, really, I guess- but more as an album artist until the mid 70s.

  8. #58
    I hate to be in the position of defending a band like Quiet Riot, but at least their backbeat had some balls and drove the song. That weird march/shuffle beat in the original is just weenie imo.

  9. #59
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    4,485
    ^That's the 'swing' element. Most of those 'big hair' 80s bands couldn't play like that.

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by trurl View Post
    I hate to be in the position of defending a band like Quiet Riot, but at least their backbeat had some balls and drove the song. That weird march/shuffle beat in the original is just weenie imo.
    You're kidding. I prefer the "march/shuffle" beat on the original. It actually sounds like Don Powell tried to come up with something interesting to play, that fit with the song's melody/rhythm, rather than just playing a stock rhythm like you heard on any number of other songs (which is what Frankie Banali did on the Quiet Riot version).

  11. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    ^That's the 'swing' element. Most of those 'big hair' 80s bands couldn't play like that.
    I think most of them probably could, if their producer's and A&R guys would have let them.

  12. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    You're kidding. I prefer the "march/shuffle" beat on the original. It actually sounds like Don Powell tried to come up with something interesting to play, that fit with the song's melody/rhythm, rather than just playing a stock rhythm like you heard on any number of other songs (which is what Frankie Banali did on the Quiet Riot version).
    Not kidding. It just doesn't work. Sometimes a straight beat is actually the way to go. Really, the bluesey shuffle/swing was the safe bet back at the time.

  13. #63
    Just found this video of the Top 10 Rip-Off Songs. Only watched the first song comparison which is The Kinks - All The Day and All The Night Vs. The Doors - Hello, I Love You. Wow, I just don't hear it yet the UK courts agreed with The Kinks and Davies received some money but no credit.

    Anyway, there's 9 more songs. Might be a interesting watch.



    Halfway through. See, this is how screwed up copyright laws are. John Fogerty gets sued for writing a song that sounds like John Fogerty. I'll have to look up the whole CCR thing as I only know a tiny bit about what happened but this is ridiculous. I had thought they were done with all that crap at that time as that was how Fogerty was actually able to release music. Maybe I have that whole situation wrong.

    Some of the others I don't hear. The Stones really are dicks for trying to take all the royalties for Bittersweet Symphony. At lest if what the video says is true.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  14. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    Just found this video of the Top 10 Rip-Off Songs. Only watched the first song comparison which is The Kinks - All The Day and All The Night Vs. The Doors - Hello, I Love You.
    Well I'll be damned, 45 years and I never caught that one. Same chord progression, same melody, only slightly different rhythm. They had a good case. Although it almost certainly wasn't intentional, just coincidence.

  15. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    Halfway through. See, this is how screwed up copyright laws are. John Fogerty gets sued for writing a song that sounds like John Fogerty. I'll have to look up the whole CCR thing as I only know a tiny bit about what happened but this is ridiculous. I had thought they were done with all that crap at that time as that was how Fogerty was actually able to release music. Maybe I have that whole situation wrong.
    Well, that's less about copyright law, and more about two grown men acting like a couple spoiled brats. Long story short: CCR's catalog (including publishing) is owned by Fantasy Records, which was run by a guy named Saul Zaentz. Fogerty was so upset about the situation, that he wrote a song called Zaentz Kant Dance, which basically painted Zaentz as a swindler, a thief and a crook. Zaentz threatened a libel suit, so after the first pressing of Centerfield, the spelling of the song was changed to Vanz Kant Dance (and appeared as a hilarious animated video on MTV for a brief while).

    Anyhow, so Zaentz sues Fogerty because Old Man Down The Road (the first single off Centerfield) sounded "too much" like Run Through The Jungle (which Zaentz owns the publishing). And of course, Fogerty's defense was "Of course, they sound similar, I wrote both of them". Fogerty had play several of his songs in court to demonstrate that his melodic and harmonic structures tend to be similar from song to song (which is probably something he loathed doing, since most songwriters tend to like think all their songs are separate and distinct things, even if some of them do sound a little similar). And Fogerty prevailed. Zaentz's suit was thrown out, on the grounds that a songwriter has the right to have a style that makes some of their songs sound similar.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post

    Some of the others I don't hear. The Stones really are dicks for trying to take all the royalties for Bittersweet Symphony. At lest if what the video says is true.
    It wasn't The Rolling Stones. It was Allen Klein, another robber baron who famously swindled The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and even The Who at one point (trivia point: the first verse of Who Are You actually happened to Townshend, when he woke up the next morning after a bender that occurred after spending a ridiculous number of hours in a business meeting finding out how he was getting frelled up the ass by Klein). Klein basically owns everything The Stones did in the 60's. He's the one who sued The Verve, and was therefore the one who collected the royalties. I remember he said in Rolling Stone at the time that we shouldn't feel too bad for the band because the publicity generated by the court case would boost unit shifting on the album. But as I recall, the fall out from the court case actually caused the band to break up.

  16. #66
    Yeah, I just got done reading the Wiki page and I "misremembered" some of that and didn't know exactly what went down in the first place. I could just be getting old and forgetting things also.

    They may have mentioned Klein in the video but I thought it was the Stones themselves. Since I know little about the Stones that's just me not knowing anything about the situation. Again.

    Learn something new everyday, eh?
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  17. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by trurl View Post
    Well I'll be damned, 45 years and I never caught that one. Same chord progression, same melody, only slightly different rhythm. They had a good case. Although it almost certainly wasn't intentional, just coincidence.
    Funny, I thought there was only a passing resemblance. What do I know, though, as I haven't played notes in thirty plus years so my music theory, and my ears, aren't that great.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  18. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    Some of the others I don't hear. The Stones really are dicks for trying to take all the royalties for Bittersweet Symphony. At lest if what the video says is true.
    You want dickishness?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_U...yright_lawsuit

  19. #69
    I've always found it interesting that, these lawsuits seem to usually only happen after the "offending" song has been out for many years and has been deemed a classic or whatever. You never hear of anyone suing someone over some self released B-side by some obscure punk band who broke up six months later, do you?

    The recent Spirit/Led Zeppelin debacle is a good example. You'd have thought if there was a real beef between the Spirit camp and Zep, the lawsuit would have happened decades ago. Hell, you'd have thought it would have happened when Randy California (the guy who actually wrote Taurus) was still walking the Earth! Instead, 40 years after Stairway To Heaven came out, and after three of the other band members have passed way (Randy died 17 years ago!), it's the bass player who's suing! And it's interesting he decides to make his move just as those deluxe editions of the Zeppelin albums are coming out. Oy!

    Another one that got me was Claire Torry suing Pink Floyd, because 30 years after Dark Side Of The Moon came out, she suddenly realized she should have been included in the byline on Great Gig In The Sky.

    Then you've got Johnnie Johnson, who was Chuck Berry's piano player, suing Chuck for songs that he claimed he cowrote, 40 years later.

    Mike Love sued in the 90's over the old Beach Boys records (which were nearly 3 decades old by then), because he felt he had been cheated by Murry Wilson all those years ago.

    Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin in the mid 80's over Whole Lotta Love. Apart from the fact that Willie waited 15 years, it's interesting to note he didn't sue The Small Faces, who hijacked the same Dixon composition. I guess since the The Small Faces track wasn't a huge hit, "it didn't matter". Willie did at least act just as the classic rock radio era was kicking into gear, so he perhaps was moving just as the song was starting to gain new value.

    I'm still convinced what happens is these people get new managers/lawyers/accountants/whatever and the new guy decides, as a means of demonstrating "what I can do to improve your career over my predecessor's performance" is to advise the artist that they've been getting ripped off all these years. Up until that moment occurs, I don't think most of these people even realize that they should be getting a cut of whichever record.

  20. #70
    Look at Deep Purple. They ripped off many, yet it's ok as they weren't money makers. You are right, it's only good for those who make money and the others really don't give a flying fart through a donut hole. Look at the thread I posted about the Amen break which the Winstons never got a dime and it's only six seconds yet has been used probably millions of times.

    Quote Originally Posted by Halmyre View Post
    Couldn't find the "original" but that's a frigging joke. Just awful.

    At this point, is there ANYTHING original?. There's only 12 notes, so really, come on. Greed is not only the realm inhabited by politicians, CEO's and bankers but assholes in the totally corrupt music business

    Lastly, spell check sucks. I didn't spell donut wrong.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  21. #71
    Studmuffin Scott Bails's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Near Philly, PA
    Posts
    6,583
    What's the point of suing if the song doesn't make any money?
    Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally

  22. #72
    Suspended
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    32S 116E
    Posts
    0
    Re All Day and All the Night vs Hello I Love You: I think the resesmblance between the opening riffs was pretty commonly known and remarked on at the time, but most people considered it just one of those things, "Oh yeah, they used the same riff." The later bits of the Doors song were different enough so that people weren't too perturbed.

    Re John Fogerty: there is a song on his Centerfield album called "Zanz Can't Dance." Even without hearing the lyrics, it's pretty obvious who that's a reference to.

  23. #73
    Suspended
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    32S 116E
    Posts
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    At this point, is there ANYTHING original?. There's only 12 notes, so really, come on.
    Just in case there are one or two people left who haven't yet seen this... hilarious.


  24. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by bob_32_116 View Post
    Re All Day and All the Night vs Hello I Love You: I think the resesmblance between the opening riffs was pretty commonly known and remarked on at the time, but most people considered it just one of those things, "Oh yeah, they used the same riff." The later bits of the Doors song were different enough so that people weren't too perturbed.
    That's kind of how I look at it. Hell, The Kinks ripped the riff off again themselves when they did Paranoia.

  25. #75
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    42°09′30″N 71°08′43″W
    Posts
    6,263
    Just in case there are one or two people left who haven't yet seen this... hilarious.
    There may be one or two people left who aren't from Australia...

    There also may be a few PEers who are as clueless about pop as I am. I recognize 12 of the tunes listed.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •