Nirvana‘s second hit single off Nevermind might have seemed a bit familiar to many of those who grew up in the eighties. That haunting riff complete with chorus effect has a striking resemblance to Killing Joke‘s 1984 hit Eighties. According to Rolling Stone Kurt Cobain was apparently nervous about the release of this track as a single. Killing Joke sued Nirvana and eventually dropped the lawsuit.
Have a listen for yourself:
Nirvana – “Come as You Are” (1992)
Killing Joke – “Eighties” (1984)
Thanks to Ari for this one.
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Here’s a little bit of interesting trivia on that one. Killing Joke’s 2003 self titled album featured Dave Grohl formerly of Nirvana.
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Kurt also used to mention quiet often that the riff on ‘Smells like teen spirit’ was ripped off Bostons ‘More than a Feeling’……I have always found it also very similar to the riff in transvision vamps ‘Baby I don’t Care’ which came out about 3 years before ‘Teen spirt’
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@Phil: Strange that Cobain would feel that way about “More than a Feeling”. To me it’s more of the guitar rhythm than anything. The verse of the Transvision Vamp track (1989) on the other hand bears a striking resemblance to The Bangles’ “Manic Monday” (1986).
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Even before that, there was “Life Goes On” by The Damned, which I believe came out in 1980. While not as similar as these two are to each other, with a much different rhythm, it’s still fairly close.
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Keith Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Thanks Melanie! I just posted this:
http://www.thatsongsoundslike.com/2009/12/02/the-damned-vs-nirvana-vs-killing-joke
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All Day And All Of The Nights (The Kinks, round Nov. 1964) stolen by The Doors as “Hello I Love You” round July 1968. The latter can’t be considered as a plagiarism…
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