Five Finger Discount: Why stealing music isn't just for kids anymore
by Joe Cortez
It's not often that I listen to the Mark and Brian morning show on local L.A. classic rock station KLOS but I found myself forced to tune to the radio in an effort to drown out the sounds of Christina Aguilera's wailings blasting from my neighbor's window one morning last week. Serves me right for not charging my iPod the night before.
On the program this morning they had guest Timothy English talking about his book, "Sounds Like Teen Spirit." In the book English, who he himself claims to be no real scholar on the subject of sonic similarities, discusses the various instances of liberal cribbing found throughout the annuls of rock and roll history. Typically, I'm the first person to decry a band that blatantly steals from others. After all, one of the things I look for most in music is some semblance of originality. But when their discussion turned to comparisons between Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and a riff from late sixties California psych band "Spirit" that was clearly more than a coincidence, I really began to wonder just how important originality is in music.
Now it's certainly no secret that musicians and songwriters often to look to each others' notes (literally) when trying to create memorable hooks and melodies, lifting where they can and hopefully going unnoticed in the process. John Lennon famously borrowed from Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" for "Abbey Road" opener "Come Together." Noel Gallagher has unashamedly used everything from the Rolling Stones to a Coca Cola advert as inspiration since Oasis' 1994 debut "Definitely Maybe." And even I can't deny that my beloved Talking Heads' "Uh Oh Love Comes to Town" has always sounded eerily similar to the Jackson 5's "ABC." I know this and yet the offspring has affected me to a far greater degree than the fore-bearer. Plagiarism is one thing but I can't deny a great tune when I hear one.
Of course concealing their inspiration is not always the intent of a band that borrows. The Pixies film "loudQUEITloud" begins with a quote by Kurt Cobain on Nirvana's breakout hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies." Most musicians are open about their influences even if the source is scarcely heard in the end result. Heck, most careers are built on people singing the songs of others. Not even a Bob Dylan is above such dubious beginnings.
So where do we find ourselves then when we have conceded that, as Bono once said, "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief?" Perhaps what's most important isn't necessarily where they got it from but rather where they take it. Zeppelin took the blues into dark, mystic and uncharted waters. Dylan used the folk songs of old as a basis for his own tunes of social consciousness only to turn his back on the very scene he helped to spur in favor of exploring the then new sound of the the electric rock revolution of the early to mid sixties. And of course where would we be without Eric Burden and the Animals' rendition of the Nina Simone standard, "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood?" (For the kids, that's the refrain heard in Lil Wayne's "Don't Get It.")
What is this all about? To be honest, I'm not sure. In writing this article I hoped to challenge my own ideas and opinions about what constitutes a valid musical expression and I guess I'm nowhere closer to an answer. What I can say for sure is the music that has moved me always struck as genuine, honest. And maybe because of that I deem the musicians I love as originals in the purest sense of the word. Of course that's tough to argue when said list includes Kate Bush, Pink Floyd and The Residents. But whereas they may cite Elton John, Miles Davis and James Brown as mentors respectively, all I hear and all I care about is the work my favorites have produced.
Is anything truly original then? Who knows. Maybe it's all just a glorified passion play of cyclical tastes and out of date fads. In that sense I guess we're all pop culturally fucked but at least we can still have a good time wasting the hours away until the next group of twenty somethings from urban America shows us just how obscure and eclectic their tastes are with their big indie radio breakout hit (Vampire Weekend, I'm looking at you).