Category Archives: Feature

Carly Rae Jepsen vs. Aza vs. Puppies

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Carly Rae Jepsen vs. Aza vs. Puppies

Normally I post songs here that sound alike hence the name. This will be the one exception. It has come to my attention that Ukranian “singer” Aza has sued Carly Rae Jespen for lifting elements of her “song” “Hunky Santa” for her mega hit “Call Me Maybe”.  It is clearly a publicity stunt and you should really just skip this post. But if you must, watch Aza’s sorta-PG-13 rated-Rebecca Black-ish video for about 30 seconds (not worthy of an embed) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mIgS2yi3k (note: Video Posted December 2011. No idea if there is an official release date before Jepsen’s Sept 2011).

Then wash your ears out with the infectious “Call Me Maybe” chorus which will no doubt be stuck in your head for another week now. (Tip: Come back here any time if you need a “Call Me Maybe” chorus fix).

Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe" (Sept 2011)

And now to cleanse yourself of everything in life watch a video of puppies I made.

Shameless plug! But who cares! They’re puppies! See more puppy videos at www.Puppy-Pile.com.

For more on this breaking news story head over to your favorite major news outlets like Perez Hilton, E! or TMZ

If you really want to listen to more “Hunky Santa” then you can:

Aza - "Hunky Santa" (Dec 2011)

Enjoy!

6 Songs That Sound Like Phantom of the Opera

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aka “Phantom of the Opera vs. Pink Floyd vs. Train vs. Puccini vs. Ray Repp vs. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat vs. Weezer”

Pink Floyd vs. Train Submitted by thewaitisogre

Pink Floyd vs. Phantom of the Opera submitted by Cristian & Travis & Matthew

 

Pink Floyd vs. Phantom of the Opera and more

This one just got better and better as I started to look into it.  After checking the Andrew Lloyd Webber Phantom of the Opera wikipedia page for some possible details it seems there are other examples. As I sit here and listen to Pink Floyd “Echoes” (1971) for the next 23 minutes (it’s a really long song) I am going to check out these others and post them below.

In 1987, the heirs of Giacomo Puccini charged in a lawsuit that the climactic phrase in “Music of the Night” closely resembled a similar phrase in the sequence “Quello che tacete” from Puccini’s opera Girl of the Golden West. The litigation was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

In 1990, a Baltimore songwriter named Ray Repp filed a lawsuit alleging that the title song from Phantom was based on a song that he wrote in 1978 called “Till You.” After eight years of litigation — including an unsuccessful countersuit by Lloyd Webber claiming that “Till You” was itself a plagiarism of “Close Every Door” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — the jury found in Lloyd Webber’s favor.

Roger Waters [of Pink Floyd] has repeatedly claimed in interviews that the signature descending/ascending half-tone chord progression from Phantom’s title song was plagiarised from the bass line of a track on the Pink Floyd album Meddle called “Echoes.” He has never taken any legal action (“Life’s too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber”), but he did add an insulting reference to Lloyd Webber in his song “It’s a Miracle”: “We cower in our shelters/With our hands over our ears/Lloyd Webber’s awful stuff/Runs for years and years and years/An earthquake hits the theatre/But the operetta lingers/Then the piano lid comes down/And breaks his fucking fingers. /It’s a miracle!”. source: wikipedia

I also started to hum Weezer‘s Blue Album b-side “Susanne”. Might be a stretch but I’m adding it anyway.

“Phantom of the Opera Theme” Intro:

Pink Floyd - "Echoes" (1971)

Andrew Lloyd Webber - "Phantom of the Opera (Intro)" (1986)

“Phantom of the Opera Theme” Verse:

Ray Repp - "Till You" (1978)

Andrew Lloyd Webber - "Phantom of the Opera (verse)" (1986)

Weezer - "Susanne" (1994)

Train - "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" (2012)

I am not sure what Webber is talking about above but here is part of the Technicolor song:

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - "Close Every Door for Me" (1982)

“Music of the Night”
Phantom of the Opera - "Music of the Night" (1986)

Giacomo Puccini (Daniele Barioni) - "La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West)" (1910)

 

Bonus!
Train vs. Train
Pat Monahan of Train
And what’s the deal with Train? Is it me or do these two choruses sound fairly similar?

Train - "50 Ways to Say Goodbye (chorus)" (2012)

Train - "Drive By" (2012)

Double Bonus!

Here is what a 23 minute Pink Floyd song  looks like (“Echoes”):

Pink Floyd Echoes Waveform

 

More reading:

Andrew Lloyd Webber Testifies vs. Ray Repp in Copyright Suit on playbill.com

 

UPDATE #2: Huey Lewis & The News vs. Ray Parker Jr. vs. The Bar-Kays vs. Queen

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UPDATE 6/21/2017:

Hans pointed out in the comments that “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)”  from 1979 by the Jackson 5 needs to be added. He’s right!

Who you gonna call?! Freddie Mercury?

Here’s an update to  Huey Lewis & The News vs. Ray Parker Jr which was one of the first posts on this site.

Huey Lewis & The News vs. Ray Parker Jr. vs. Bar-Kays vs. Queen Ghotbusters Theme
[Ahh, Photoshop… the possibilities are endless.
L to R: Huey Lewis, Freddie Mercury, Ben Cauley of the Bar-Kays, Ray Parker, Jr. ]

Travis pointed out how much Queen‘s 1989 “The Invisible Man” sounds like the Ghostbusters theme as well   (Make sure you check out the video below -it’s totally 80s).  So listen to all four of these tracks. I’ve also updated  “I Want a New Drug” and “Ghostbusters”  to include the verses and intros.

The Bar-Kays - "Soul Finger" (1967)

Huey Lewis & The News - "I Want a New Drug (verse)" (1984)
Huey Lewis & The News - "I Want a New Drug (intro)" (1984)

Ray Parker Jr. - "Ghostbusters Theme (intro)" (1984)

Ray Parker Jr. - "Ghostbusters Theme (verse)" (1984)

Queen - "The Invisible Man" (1989)

 

Here’s some reading from Wikipedia:

I found this on wikipedia regarding the Huey Lewis & The News track “I Want a New Drug” (1984) and Ray Parker Jr.’s theme to the movie Ghostbusters (also 1984). Ever since this song, if  anyone asks me “who I’m gonna call” you know what I’m gonna say.

In 1984, Ray Parker Jr. was signed by the producers of Ghostbusters to develop the film’s title song. Later that year, Huey Lewis and the News sued Parker, citing the similarities between the “Ghostbusters” song and their earlier hit “I Want a New Drug”. According to Huey Lewis and the News, this was especially damaging to them since “Ghostbusters” was so popular, rising to number one on the charts for three weeks. Parker and Lewis later settled out of court. Huey Lewis has stated that his experiences with the producers of Ghostbusters may have been indirectly responsible for getting his band involved with the movie Back to the Future.

In the 2001 Behind the Music special, Huey Lewis stated: “The offensive part was not so much that Ray Parker Jr. had ripped this song off, it was kind of symbolic of an industry that wants something—they wanted our wave, and they wanted to buy it. … [I]t’s not for sale. … In the end, I suppose they were right. I suppose it was for sale, because, basically, they bought it.” As a result of this statement, Parker Jr. filed a suit against Lewis, claiming he violated the settlement’s confidentiality agreement and seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney fees.

An issue of Premiere Magazine would later feature an anniversary article about the movie Ghostbusters. In that article, the filmmakers admit to using the song “I Want A New Drug” as temporary background music in many scenes. They then said that they had made an offer to Huey Lewis and the News to write the main theme, but they declined. The filmmakers then provided Ray Parker Jr film footage—with the Huey Lewis song in the background—to aid Parker in writing the theme song.  – Huey Lewis & The News on Wikipedia

 

The most important question here is will there be a Ghostbusters 3? And if so will Huey Lewis and Ray Parker Jr. co-write a new theme song.
“I Want a New Ghost”
“I Ain’t Afraid of No Drugs”

And now the video for Queen “The Invisible Man”

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