10 cases of brazen plagiarism in rock music

Plagiarism in rock music is commonplace. Brutal rockers sometimes behave quite brazenly, copying the intro or chorus from colleagues in the shop.

Not everyone has the courage to admit this, so scandals on the basis of musical theft have occurred, are occurring and will continue to occur.

10 Bon Jovi и Bonnie Tyler vs Ankie Bagger

In 1986, the singer Bonnie Tyler recorded the song If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man), the chorus of which was used by Bon Jovi in ​​his composition You Give Love A Bad Name the same year.

In this case, there was no plagiarism and everything was by agreement of the parties. Both songs were quite successful (although the Bon Jovi version still won), so the producer of the Swedish singer Ankie Bagger decided to take a cool chorus tune and record the single Where Were You Last Night for his ward.

This case is one of the most outrageous since singer Ankie Bagger rose to fame with this single. It is popular even now, and covers of it are present in the repertoire of many performers, for example, Nightwish.

9. Breaking Benjamin vs DEATHGAZE

Every self-respecting fan of alternative rock knows the guys from Breaking Benjamin, but it wasn’t always like this: in 2006 it was not so easy to thunder all over the world as it is now.

The team released the track The Diary of Jane, which did not become a hit in the homeland of the artists, and in Asia no one heard it at all, since the Internet was not so widespread at that time.

DEATHGAZE took advantage of this, licking the whole song clean, passing it off as their own and calling it Forsaken.

Until now, many are amazed at the impudence with which this was done: the Japanese did not even try to somehow disguise the fact of theft and rework the music.

8. The Offspring vs «Ранетки»

All previous, as well as subsequent cases of plagiarism do not seem so terrible, because if we disregard the fact of theft, then the songs turned out to be quite good. But this..

Taking the main, probably, hit of The Offspring Pretty Fly and creating “We are Ranetki” based on it is like stealing a Lamborghini design and creating Zaporozhets based on it.

7. King and Shut vs Scars on broadway

It is generally accepted that Russian rockers like to borrow the tune from their Western counterparts, but sometimes (rarely) the opposite happens. So it happened with the song Insane by Scars on broadway.

The composition of the side project by System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian is very reminiscent of our Kish’s “Reflection”.

The introduction, the lead to the verses, the drum rhythm and the losses in the middle of the song – all this was clearly not composed by Malakyan.

6. New Model Army vs “King and Shut”

And in this case, Gorshk and his comrades can already be safely accused of plagiarism. One of their main hits, the song “Northern Fleet” is almost entirely “torn off” from the New Model Army’s Vagabonds track.

Even people whose ears are regularly walked by a bear will easily notice the similarity. It’s quite funny when listening to a foreign song you are tempted to shout “Hoi”, because the motive is well known.

5. Sunny Day Real Estate vs Marilyn Manson

You’ve hardly ever heard of American indie rockers Sunny Day Real Estate, but who definitely listened to them was the great and terrible Marilyn Manson.

In his composition Putting Holes In Happiness, he does not just refer to the SDRE track Killed by Angel, but brazenly copies the intro, motive and chorus. Due to the fact that no one really knows or remembers the affected indie group, plagiarism was not accompanied by a loud scandal.

4. Linkin Park vs Axxis

The Germans from the Axxis band have been playing power-metal music for three decades, and despite the fact that they have not gained worldwide popularity, the band is quite recognizable locally.

They are distinguished by their originality and in their work there is not even a hint of plagiarism, with the exception of one case. For their track More Than For One Day, they completely copied the chorus of Leave Out All The Rest by alternative bands Linkin Park. It’s also funny that the rest of the songs have nothing in common: Axxis wrote their own composition, but for some reason they inserted music from someone else’s chorus into it.

3. The Beatles vs Chuck Berry

This story is decades old, but fans of early rock and roll must have heard of it. Chuck Berry, generally considered one of the founding fathers of the genre, often served as an object to follow: everyone wanted to be like him, so they wrote things as similar as possible, but still their own.

The cult group The Beatles went further, borrowing much from the creation of You Can’t Catch Me by Chuck Berry for their song Come Together.

In particular, the latter has the line “Here come a flat-top, he was movin’ up with me”, and Lennon sings “Here come ol’ flat-top, he come groovin’ up slowly”.

Plagiarism was evident, but the matter did not reach the court, as the parties were able to resolve the conflict and agree amicably. Apparently, the Beatles paid a hefty sum in compensation.

2. Spirit vs Led Zeppelin

There are not so many people around the world now who remember or even just know Spirit, and even fewer who have heard their instrumental composition Taurus.

But once upon a time, in the 60s of the last century, the legendary Led Zeppelin performed at Spirit as an opening act.

In the 21st century, it suddenly seemed to the surviving members of this band that Jimmy Page stole the guitar picks for the song Stairway To Heaven from their track Taurus.

By that time, both bands had not performed for a long time, and Randy California, the frontman of Spirit, had already passed away. The court left the plaintiffs with nothing, ruling that there was no plagiarism in this case.

1. The Hollies vs Radiohead

The underground rockers “Masha and the Bears” in the late 90s made a notable noise in Russia with the song “Lyubochka”, which everyone knew then, as it is sung in the chorus.

Not immediately, but gradually, music lovers noticed that the composition is very similar to Radiohead’s Creep, but that’s not the most interesting thing.

The Hollies, known in the 70s, filed a lawsuit against Radiohead, as they considered Creep a plagiarism from their 1973 track The Air I Breathe.

This case is made even more interesting by the fact that the court did not reveal the winner and the true author: both teams were recognized as equal authors of the song, so now they also receive equal income from it.