06-15-2006, 09:04 PM
Quote:Sort of like how that new Red Hot Chili Pepper's song is ripping off Tom Petty.
That one has sure made it's way around the internet, but I don't entirely buy it. It's not that I don't buy that RHCP ripped off the Tom Petty guitar riff, because I think that much is pretty obvious. And since both songs had the same producer, it was probably even intentional. I'm just not convinced that it was Tom's riff to rip off in the first place. I opened up a blues keyboard book, and it took me about 5 minutes to find an A-G-D chord progression. In fact, the book teaches how to imitate piano licks in the style of various Chicago blues artists in transposed forms of this progression. So any claims that this is not a traditional blues progression are more or less bogus. And the rhythm and style of the riff in question is not very distinctive... I've heard many people say it sounds like the Sweet Home Alabama riff, for instance. Give me a million dollars in legal research fees, and I bet I can find someone who played this exact riff before Tom Petty.
The vocal melodies of the two songs are similar only in style but not in any specific way, and the choruses of the two songs have very different melodies and different chordings. At the end of the day the only thing I think you can say about the two songs is that they are of generally similar style and share a very basic, 3-chord riff. (They also have bass drum on count 1 and snare on counts 2 and 4...) If that's enough to be considered a ripoff, then you can probably throw out all of your blues rock and punk rock albums right now, because most of these 2 chord or 3 chord rhythm parts probably aren't unique. Even in classical music, rhythmic harmony parts are often nearly identical to one another. If they had used the melody from the chorus of Mary Jane's Last Dance though, they'd be fried.
That's my take on that one. I haven't seen Kill Bill, so I can't really comment on the main topic of your post.