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Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

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Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#111

Post by thruflo22 »

mentos wrote: post #40
jimnotgym wrote: post #7

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhe…

If I was a lawyer I'd strum those 4 open E chords on a guitar then play all three songs. The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe, Radiohead - Creep, Lana Del Rey - Get Free Then maybe I'd make some argument about anyone who made 3 left turns and a right turn to get to the court house today owes me a royalty for using my elegant route without my permission. If you want to get to the court house tomorrow you have to figur…

Reminds me of the four chords song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#112

Post by olavk »

jimnotgym wrote: post #101
billsix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try not to judge a musician's talent and knowledge based off of their popular hits. John Mayer is a phenomenal guitarist whose commercially successful songs require few of his actual abilities. I find that Radiohead creates quite interesting music from a theory perspective. Learn to play songs like "no surprises" and "paranoid Android" from Ok Computer. They venture outside of normal key in various ways. Being able t…

> Learn to play songs like "no surprises" Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here. I base my supposition about how Radiohead constructed their early hits from learning to play them. I like 'No suprises', which I learned for the vocal challenge, but I think this bears me out. IIRC the song opens with an arpeggio using a simple open-D shape behind a capo high up the neck which gives that interesting tone. The second…

So he is a musician creating original (even amazing, surprising and exotic) music by playing with and exploring ideas on a musical instrument. And you consider this as something less valuable than trying out "theoretical concepts".

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#113

Post by zer00eyz »

cJ0th wrote: post #4

As a hobby music producer I just can't wrap my head around the logic behind copyright infringement. It's so arbitrary. It's illegal to steal a melody but sophisticated chord progressions are fine. It's illegal to copy the text of even the simplest verse but reverse engineering some complex synthesizer sounds is fine. Although I personally strive for it, I don't think originality is a point worth discussing. Music is…

Arbitrary would be an understatement. It is downright insane

Crediting a composer on silence is a copyright case:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/35...

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#114

Post by acabal »

pault wrote: post #106
JohnStrangeII wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we see right now is the beginning of the "intellectual property" lawsuit wave. Music producers, artists, and record labels have always known that pop music doesn't come out of thin air and is highly repetitive. For some popular chord progressions and main melodies you can literally find thousands of practically identical songs. Until recently, copyright holders have avoided lawsuits except in cases of blatant co…

What I can't figure out is how Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" (TLC - "No Scrubs") and Portugal, The Man's "Feel it Still" (Marelettes - "Please Mr. Postman") flew under the radar. Are the big producers clearing melodies and chord progressions like samples now?

It's likely they haven't flown under the radar, but rather the record labels have negotiated a deal ahead of time, or maybe even the same label owns the rights to both the new and old songs.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#115

Post by soundwave106 »

billsix wrote: post #47
jimnotgym wrote: post #7

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhe…

> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. E major, G# major, A major, A minor The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor ar…

The progression is I / III / IV / iv. "Get Free"'s verses (not chorus) is in this progression in B. "Creep" is in G.

Not the most common progression, but a Google on it led to Reddit where a few other examples came up -- part of the chorus of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ("this is ground control to Major Tom") or ELO's "Tightrope".

One problem with "Creep" is that it is a simple four chord loop, unlike the above songs. Nothing wrong with a four bar chord loop, but four chord loops alone really aren't unique enough to be copyrightable (MHO). Four chord loops are a staple of basic rock and roll (garage rock and punk etc.). Because the scope of triad movement is limited in these styles, the chords you are playing (and even to some degree the melodies that come from this) have probably been done before a long time ago. Think for instance what would happen if the "12 bar blues" progression or the "doo wop progression" (I-vi-IV-V) which dominates 1950s music was placed under lock and key.

Inevitably bands in four chord loop mode step on each other and produce similar sounding songs. When I played in a cover band, we played with this sort of thing to deliver "two songs at once" moments. For example, Puddle of Mudd's "She Hates Me" has the exact same chords (and pacing!) as Suicidal Tendencies' "I Saw Your Mommy" -- both are Emaj Amaj F#maj Bmaj. The chorus of the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" and the Troggs' "Wild Thing" (I-IV-V-IV in Amaj, somewhat similar rhythm) are also similar enough where you can swap between the two mid song. In modern times, enough modern country songs used the exact same chord loops and pacing (roughly IV-I-V in Bmaj) for someone to make a mashup of six of them playing simultaneously. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o) It would have been fun to cover this mashup. :)

Radiohead has a stronger case on the melody, but there's a point where I wonder where the threshold of uniqueness should lie. Due to the relative complexity, it would be IMHO pretty difficult for someone to accidentally come up with "Space Oddity" or "Tightrope" chorus. On the other hand, I personally can easily see accidentally coming up with the Creep melody with these chords (this seems like a very similar situation to the Tom Petty "I Won't Back Down" / Sam Smith "Stay With Me" situation). IMHO, if something is easy to accidentally create, it shouldn't be unique enough for copyright protection.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#116

Post by coldtea »

was8309 wrote: post #110
coldtea wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We (the audience) just love repetitive bullshit too much. It's our fault. Why is it a fault? Music is about what people love. Why should they stretch that to love something else? Because some consider it more "serious"? > Jazz, although built on a (less) restrictive harmonic foundation, tends to not have this problem, because the musicians and the audience are more talented. It tends to have the problem of very few…

how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing? It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to 'hear', love, and make a hit of a harmonically complicated song like Ray Charles' version of 'Come Rain or Come Shine', but now we seem incapable of doing so. Do you think there is no chance at all that audiences have been dumbed down?

>how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing?

People liked simple melodies and harmonies for several millennia before the advent of a music industry and/or music marketing, so?

>It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to 'hear', love, and make a hit of a harmonically complicated song like Ray Charles' version of 'Come Rain or Come Shine', but now we seem incapable of doing so.

They might have gone to that, but not to Ornette Coleman or Schoenberg or Berg.

>Do you think there is no chance at all that audiences have been dumbed down?

I'd say, it's complicated. Basically, it's not the people's tastes in music that have been dumbed down per se, but the role that music plays in people's lives that has been dumbed down with mass constant access and music as muzak. But while you mention Come Rain or Come Shine or some such, I don't see e.g. Louie Louie being that elaborate, or Tea for Two for that matter.

Heck, most rock n' roll of the 50s is the same BS chords and similar melodic lines over again with sophomore lyrics. And yet in the 70s people listened to 12+ minute long "opuses" and solos (that while requiring technical dexterity, aesthetically and culturally they were as much a joke as Nicky Ninaj, complete with King Arthur references and trivial re-uses of classical harmonies and pointless soloing).

So, it's complicated.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#117

Post by onion2k »

tejohnso wrote: post #29
onion2k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music is about expression first and foremost. That may be, but the music industry is much more about industry than music. Artists like Radiohead only want to "protect their art" when there's a chance of getting a worthwhile check in to the bargain.

How do you know that a worthwhile check has anything to do with Radiohead's motives? What other artists are you implying belong to this group?

They sue artists who are successful and ignore smaller artists. Clearly it's about the money, otherwise they'd protect their songs against every infringement even if it costs them to do so rather than only protecting songs when there's the possibility of a pay out.

These law suits are not about art.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#118

Post by wgj »

mentos wrote: post #40
jimnotgym wrote: post #7

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhe…

If I was a lawyer I'd strum those 4 open E chords on a guitar then play all three songs. The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe, Radiohead - Creep, Lana Del Rey - Get Free Then maybe I'd make some argument about anyone who made 3 left turns and a right turn to get to the court house today owes me a royalty for using my elegant route without my permission. If you want to get to the court house tomorrow you have to figur…

This is a pretty good demonstration on acoustic guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV8jYTfxJTI

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#119

Post by jnwatson »

manmal wrote: post #109
jimnotgym wrote: post #7

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhe…

(Fellow guitarist here) I agree, there are only so many chord progressions that work in a pop song.. perhaps 30 or even less? But the chords are not the only problem here. Listen to the voices‘ melodies of „my modern manifesto“ (Lana) vs „I‘m a weirdo“ (Radiohead) - that’s so blatantly copied I almost can’t believe it. If she were a hobbyist, I might believe that her subconscious sneaked it all in without her noticin…

Yeah, I think there's more similarity than just the chord progression. Part of it is the vocal timbre. Lana Del Rey's relaxed, under-enunciated consonants is similar to the vocal style in grunge when Creep came out. But she does that in almost all her songs.

The chorus is completely different, and so is the instrumentation and musical style. It is a close call whether I'd call that plagiarism.

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