Tag Archives: progress is derivative

A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Australian Method Series: Jet – Get Born

Released in 2005.

Riding the wave of “old is new” to a whole new audience who was too young to know the old or to have heard it.

Listening to this album got me to call up a 60’s Rock Anthems playlist on Spotify and it’s surprising how many songs released in the 80s moving forward have riffs from 60’s songs. There are the artists that we all know like Hendrix, Cream, The Who, Steppenwolf, The Doors and Zeppelin but artists like The Kinks, The Kingsmen, CCR, The Animals and even Marvin Gaye have been influential in developing the hard rock and heavy metal riffs.

Jet are from Melbourne.

Nic Cester is on vocals and guitar, Chris Cester is on drums and vocals, Cameron Muncey is on guitars and vocals and Mark Wilson is on bass, piano and harmonica.

Last Chance

“Can you give me one more try at that?”

And LOUD RAWK AND ROLL kicks in.

Are You Gonna Be My Girl

It’s sitting at 347.811 million streams on Spotify.

On the Jet YouTube account the video is at 122 million views.

Yeah, it sounds like other songs (Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life” is mentioned a fair bit), but who cares. Imitation is a form of flattery. And all hit songs are derivative versions of songs which came before.

Rollover D.J.

It’s a Rolling Stones track in the verses and a 12 bar blues track in the Chorus.

Look What You’ve Done

58.066 million streams on Spotify.

A piano riff starts the song, with a Beatle-esque “Sexy Sadie” like vocal. Even the lyrics have a similarity.

The Beatles have “Sexy Sadie, what have you done! / You’ve made a fool of everyone”.

Jet has “Oh, look what you’ve done / You’ve made a fool of everyone”.

Progress is derivative. Take something that came before and tweak it.

Get What You Need

The drum groove gets me, but it’s the reminders of other songs that makes me a fan.

If you’ve heard “All Day And All Of The Night” from The Kinks, you’ll hear some similarities.

If you’ve heard “If It Feels Good, Do It” from Sloan you’ll hear similarities.

And if you played NHL 2004, you would have heard the song and become a fan.

Move On

It feels like a Free/Bad Company/Rolling Stones acoustic cut which Guns N Roses also used as an influence for “Patience”.

Radio Song

Say hello to “Hey Jude” or a slower version of “Baby Blue” from Badfinger.

Get Me Outta Here

I went down to the bank just to get me my pay / I’m gonna get me, outta here / I got me some cash, I’m headed back to LA / I’m gonna get me, outta here

Keeping with the theme of “old is new” again, even the lyrics were based on pre 2000 pay days.

Cold Hard Bitch

It’s at 52.995 million streams on Spotify.

They bring so many vibes to this track.

Listen to it and you’ll spot “Woman From Tokyo” by Deep Purple, “Best I Can” by Rush, “Shoot To Thrill“ by AC/DC, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who and a little bit of Stones mixed in.

Come Around Again

A country rock ballad with a Bad Company feel.

“I don’t know when I’m right that I only know when I’m wrong”

Sometimes our minds become our worst enemies.

Take It Or Leave It

The Kinks “unhinged”.

Lazy Gun

The “High Voltage” riff to a funky bass riff. Brilliant.

A Beatles influenced Chorus which also reminds me of “Purple Rain” from Prince and “Faithfully” from Journey. Brilliant.

Timothy

All death is tragic.

Sgt Major

The bonus track.

Check out the main riff. It reminds me of “Kings And Queens” from Aerosmith.

They had some serious momentum in promoting this album in Australia with national station Triple J having em in constant rotation that all the other stations followed pretty quickly.

In Australia, it’s 8x Platinum.

In Japan and New Zealand, it’s Gold.

In Argentina, Canada, UK and US, it’s Platinum.

In other words it was everywhere.

Crank it.

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A to Z of Making It, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – August 2 to August 8

4 Years Ago (2017)

Streaming services were challenged.

Netflix had a debt problem. Spotify hadn’t turned a profit and neither had Pandora. Meanwhile, Soundcloud was for sale.

And they had expenses.

They had to pay for content either by creating their own for TV and Film providers, or by licensing content from the labels and movie studios.

The ISP’s then charge all the streaming providers a lot of money for them to use their fast channels without any buffering and then the ISP’s charge us to use the internet and access these streaming services.

But all of these streaming providers have the same issue every other service and artist has.

People can’t slow down their lives long enough to immerse themselves in their content at a rate they would like.

If Netflix has this problem, imagine every up and coming musician or established musician.

1983 was a revolutionary year and the year that metal and rock music became a commercial force and a massive influence on society. Along with the rise of MTV, culture changed dramatically.

Metal and rock music made governments introduce censorship stickers on new releases.

Preachers and TV evangelists became rich and famous when they condemned the art form and told their followers the devil is on the loose, only to be caught with their pants down in seedy motels.

Lawyers took artists to the civil courts because suddenly when records got played backwards people believe they found subliminal messages telling kids to kill themselves.

Band T-shirts had been around before, but nothing like the 80’s. A whole new billion dollar industry came about, because of the imagery. We wanted the T-shirts. It told the world we are a member of the club.

It was just unfortunate that the record labels abandoned these musicians for a newly created record label genre called Grunge.

8 Years Ago (2013)

It’s the music that makes “Learning To Live” from Dream Theater a classic.

“Learning To Live” was released in 1992 on the “Images and Words” album. The song is that good, that Dream Theater even rewrote it and called it “Breaking All Illusions” for the “A Dramatic Turn of Events” album in 2011.

I wrote about artists staying true to their artistic vision and doing what is valuable to them, using bands like Evergrey, Coheed and Cambria, Dream Theater, Digital Summer, Five Finger Death Punch and Protest The Hero as examples.

I compared 2011 and 2013 as it felt like déjà vu again.

In 2011, I was listening to “In Waves” from Trivium and “A Dramatic Turn of Events” from Dream Theater.

And in 2013, I was waiting for “Vengeance Falls” from Trivium and Dream Theater’s self titled album to drop.

We are living in the generation of kids born from 1997 onwards. A generation who consumes music and entertainment digitally. Their sense of community is all online. These kids weren’t alive when the Record Labels ruled the day, so they have no desire for that era, they are all about today and what lays beyond.

The music community has shifted to being a song centric community. We just don’t know it yet. The album format that used to make the most money for the record labels is almost a dead format. However artists still go back and release a collection of songs as an album.

But it’s what gets played over and over again and into the future that matters.

Music is a long road.

Let’s go back in time.

It’s 1982.

The band Bleak House have two highly-regarded releases out in the market and a loyal fan base. One of those releases is a single called “Rainbow Warrior”, that has a movable power chord verse riff that went from B to C to D over an E pedal tone which would go on to form the main riff in Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”.

And Bleak House struggled to write new material and compete with the other acts releasing music consistently. Eventually they disappeared.

Any artist starting off you need to be creating and releasing. Forget about the 2 to 3 year gap between albums. That is the Record Label standard. It was never the artist standard.

And here is my study on the songs that “Welcome Home” from Metallica borrows from.

And that’s another wrap for another week.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Little Wing and Catch A Rainbow

Progress Is Derivative.

I always say it. Especially when it comes to music. It’s always a new take on an old sound with some small changes to the progression.

I knew when I heard “Catch A Rainbow” from Rainbow that I had heard the song before. And I was thinking of Skid Row when I heard it, because their take on a Jimi Hendrix song was fresh in my mind at the time.

The origins of “Little Wing” go back even further to a 1966 recording of “(My Girl) She’s a Fox”, an R&B song which features Hendrix playing a Curtis Mayfield-influenced guitar accompaniment.

It’s all derivative and cyclical. Hendrix toured with Mayfield and learnt from him and then used some of the techniques that Mayfield used, like the rhythmic fills on the chords to orchestrate songs like “Little Wing” and “The Wind Cries Mary”.

To call Blackmore a copyist is wrong.

To call Dio a copyist is wrong.

To call Hendrix a copyist is also wrong.

And to see em all as super original and free from influences is also wrong.

To see Mayfield as super original is also wrong.

Everyone learns from someone or from some song. It’s why we start off playing covers. We are all influenced.

However people would like you to believe that they are original and free from influences when they bring up suits to the courts.

Did Tom Petty deserve a lyrical credit to a Sam Smith song?

Did Iron Maiden need to settle with a person who didn’t create anything and just managed an artist?

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, Unsung Heroes

The Shed

Progress Is Derivative.

Case in point.

“The Shed” from Rainbow and “Are You Gonna Go My Way” from Lenny Kravitz.

From 1.10, check “The Shed” out, especially the riff and drum pattern behind it. And then play “Are You Gonna Go My Way” from Lenny Kravitz.

So can we conclude that due to these similarities, Blackmore is super original and Kravitz isn’t.

Not a chance.

Kravitz is doing what every artist before has done. Take from your influences, be inspired and do a new take on an old sound.

Because if you want to talk influences or being influenced, when Blackmore starts “The Shed”, for the first 11 seconds, he paraphrased the “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” vocal melody from The Beatles, who took the vocal melody from the A and D blues scales.

And on and on and on it goes, the cycle of influence.

But lawyers are convincing juries and judges that the work of the artist they represent is so super original that anyone else who uses it as influence is copying.

And juries believe it.

“All my life it seems, just a crazy dream”.

The words of Ronnie James Dio in “Light In The Black”. It’s a crazy dream alright when culture is pillaged by corporations (labels, publishing, fund managers who have purchased copyrights, tech services and lawyers) and the heirs of dead artists.

Money first, culture second as the real creators go back to the shed to write some more.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, Unsung Heroes

Oli Herbert – All That Remains

I remember the first time I heard the band. It was in 2008 and the “Overcome” album just dropped. I believe it was their fourth album.

At the time I had no idea how divisive this album was to their existing fan base. I read comments to reviews and YouTube videos that blasted this album.

One fan mentioned how the album is the mass marketed pop washed version of “The Fall of Ideals” (their much loved previous album). And as I type this, I still haven’t listened to the three albums before “Overcome”.

For me, “Overcome” made All That Remains (ATR) accessible and I’ve been a fan since. And ATR had the balls to go with what they believed was right at the point in time.

Because in music when you have public acceptance of your music/certain songs, you start to write similar songs so that the public acceptance remains. Some bands totally change styles while others do it within their style. ATR did it within their style.

Anyway the first track “Before The Damned” started blasting out of my headphones. It’s also by far the most heaviest track.

From 0 to 22 seconds, the snare and palm muted guitar pattern hooks you in straight away. It’s performed by syncopated military precision. Yeah it might sound generic but so did every pedal point riff on albums in the Eighties. And if you go back to the Seventies, a lot of albums had the same blues pedal point boogie going on.

From 22 to 33 seconds, the whole band is now grooving on the intro pattern, however this time the bass drum sounds out the intro riff and the other instruments play something a bit different, like open string melodic leads and what not.

From 34 to 55 seconds the verse rolls around. The riff again is generic but within the context of the song it works and the way the drums and guitars are synchronized is excellent.

But it‘s the Chorus from 56 seconds to 1.07 that seals the deal. I was hooked by how effortlessly ATR changed from the death metal verses to the hard rock arena chorus.

We will still set in motion
Changing of the time
We have not forgotten
We control our lives

Now every review I read blasted Labonte’s clean vocals and how they lacked depth, balls or there was too much auto tune.

Basically they all said that Labonte should not do clean vocals ever in the same way Bruce Dickinson should never attempt screamo/death metal vocals.

Even James Hetfield copped criticism for his vocals on the self titled Metallica album and the Load LP’s. But every artist needs to grow and try new things. These subjective debates is the reason why I love music. You can talk the whole day and night over differing viewpoints.

When I hear a song, I listen to it from a guitar point of view.

Does the song make me want to put down what I am doing and learn it?

And this song does.

Musically it’s excellent.

At 2.04 we get this head banging metal breakdown and the solo begins at 2.09 over that same head banging breakdown riff. The solo is chromatic and diminished, in the same way Randy Rhoads shreds on “Diary Of A Madman”. This concludes at 2.19. It sounds dissonant and atonal.

After two minutes and fifty seconds the song is done. So I listened again and again and again because it’s a lesson on no filler songwriting. It’s also a great lesson in the “Progress Is Derivative” model because the song takes a lot of their influences and puts it all together in an original way.

And the main man behind the guitar is Oli Herbert. A great guitar player, founding member of All That Remains and songwriter who passed away at 44.

Rest In Peace.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Daily Mix

My Spotify daily mix was full of niceties today. It started me off in 1994 (Motley Crue), went back to 1986 (Van Halen), then to 1987 (Whitesnake), then back to 1986 (Tesla), then back to 1988 (Europe), then back to 1987 (Dio and Twisted Sister), 1991 (Skid Row) and back to 1987 (Great White)

Power To The Music

The Motley Corabi line up kicks off my day. Tommy Lee kills it behind the kit as he grooves this song to perfection. The self-titled album is the forgotten album in the Motley Crue revisionist history. It’s like 1993 to 1996 never happened.

Power To The Music
Who said the music’s dead in the streets?
Don’t know what they talk about.
They gotta put a bullet in my head if they want to keep me down

When I first heard this song, the message was load and clear. The record labels might have put their support behind new musical movements, but rock music was far from dead.

Good Enough

“Hello baby”, screams Sammy, before the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony thunder in and Sammy starts singing about how a fine woman is like U.S prime grade beef. Totally 80’s and totally male.

Wow, U.S. Prime, grade A stamped guaranteed
Grease it up and turn on the heat
You gotta throw it down and roll it over once, maybe twice
Then chow down, down, down, down

Don’t Turn Away

It’s a forgotten song from the mega selling 1987 album. I love it because of the up tempo ending. It reminds me of the ending of “Still Of The Night” and you don’t want it to end.

Rock Me To The Top

Tesla’s music to me is timeless. It doesn’t sound dated or tied to a particular era. Yeah, I know they got lumped in with the Sunset Strip bands, but Tesla was so much more. And they proved it in the 90’s, when all of the Sunset Strip bands got dropped, Tesla continued to make records and tour to great success. They took risks and backed themselves to deliver acoustically. Not a lot of bands could have done that to the quality Tesla did.

“Rock Me To The Top” is written by vocalist Jeff Keith and estranged guitarist Tommy Skeoch. The riff is foot stomping hard rock to a tee.

I’ll take command, take control
Now I see you comin’ back for more
I see you like it, but you don’t need it
Ooh you wanna feel it

Yep, I’m pretty sure Jeff Keith is singing about driving a car.

Sign Of The Times

That keyboard riff is as iconic as “The Final Countdown” riff. It’s a tragedy the song is not well known.

All The Fools Sailed Away

What a voice? Rest in peace Ronnie James Dio, you’ll be forever missed.

The drumming is epic, great vocal melodies, great movements between loud and soft and when the chorus comes in with the backing vocals; it’s time to sing along.

We are the innocent
We are the damned
We were caught in the middle of the madness
Hunted by the lion and the lamb

Society is founded on the persecution of races. And as we get more advanced, persecution exists between the have and the have nots.

And all the fools sailed away
All the fools sailed away
Sailed away

People need to move and find new lands/cities to thrive and survive.

Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant)

It’s another anthem for the SMF’s, the black sheep and the down trodden to wake up and stand together against corruption and oppression.

Who the hell are they to say?
What we can do and how we can play
We got the numbers, yeah,
We got the might
We got the strength and
We got the right
We got the reason, yeah,
We got the night
So wake up the sleeping giant

It’s the war cry against censorship. Freedom comes with a choice and sometimes, we sign away our freedom because we like to create an enemy, someone to blame when it all goes to hell.

It’s our rights they’re abusing,
It’s our right to fight back
So rally the troops and
Let’s start the attack

Around the world, our internet is under attack from governments and corporations. They want to control it, regulate it and charge a premium for it. The Net Neutrality war is real and it’s happening and only a handful of people are speaking up against it. The rest are ignorant.

Slave To The Grind

It’s the thrash metal title track from album number 2, which went straight to number 1 on release. Skid Row could do no wrong musically, even though the internal politics and bickering between Bach and Bolan/Sabo had reached Don Dokken/George Lynch volume levels.

Rock Me

After a few verses, I was thinking what’s next and then the Chorus kicked in. I became a fan instantly.

Rock me, rock me, roll me through the night

Today two versions exist, Jack Russell’s Great White and Mark Kendall’s version of Great White. And unfortunately, they are more remembered recently for the Station nightclub fire in 2003 that killed a lot of their fans when pyrotechnics set off by the tour manager ignited plastic foam used as sound insulation in the walls and ceilings surrounding the stage.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Progress Is Derivative 3

Playlist 

Good artists copy, great artists steal is the saying. We can paraphrase it to “Good artists try to sound original by hiding their influences”, while “great artists let their influences show”. It’s how the language of music is learned. We imitate our influences.

If you don’t believe me, what is the first thing a person does when they are learning an instrument?

We start by learning songs created by other artists.

Inspiration is not theft. Theft is me taking something and you not having it to use anymore, like your apple or your car. Taking a musical expression and using it in your own song is not theft, as the original musical expression is still there. Here are some examples of taking musical expressions and re-using them in different songs. And in each example, the original expression is still there.

  • Five Finger Death Punch in the verses of “Lift Me Up” paid homage to Ozzy’s vocal melody from “The Ultimate Sin”.
  • Megadeth in the verses of “Kingmaker” paid homage to Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave”.
  • Dave Mustaine wrote “This Was My Life” from his “Phantom Lord” progression that appears from about 2.30 to 3.10.
  • “Live Wire” from Motley Crue borrowed from Girlschool’s “Yeah Right”.
  • “My Sanctuary” from Unisonic released in 2012 has a vocal melody that is very similar to “A Flock Of Seagulls” song called “I Ran (So Far Away)” that was released in 1981.
  • “Hey Hey My My” from Neil Young, released in 1979 is very similar to the song “I’d Love To Change The World” from Ten Years After released in 1971. In addition the riff to Tom Petty’s “Refugee” from 1980 is also very similar to “I’d Love To Change The World.”
  • “Ten Black Roses” from The Rasmus released in 2008 borrows from Muse’s “Showbiz” released in 1998.
  • “Life is Beautiful” from Sixx AM released in 2007 borrows from Duran Duran’s “Come Undone” released in 1993.
  • Even the song “Come Undone” is an amalgamation of other songs. Duran Duran wrote a song called “First Impression” and guitarist Warren Cuccurullo was creating a re-interpretation of the song for a covers album the band was doing which would include some re-interpreted songs. The bass line and drum groove came from producer John Jones and a song demo he did called “Face to Face”.
  • The song “This Is It” from the band Staind released in 2011 has the chorus vocal melody that borrows from The Offspring’s “Gone Away” chorus melody.
  • “Shepherd Of Fire” borrows from everything. The fire and the bell at the start and the feedback riff with the evil tri-tone is influenced from the song “Black Sabbath”. The drum pattern is very “Trust” like from Megadeth which is based on based on AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”. The guitar riffs are also very Megadeth like and also based on “Trust” from “Cryptic Writings”. Yep, it’s perfect and it is a perfect example of the “progress is derivative” effect in action.

The list is just a summary of how the creative arts work.

We take what came before and we build on it. And for creativity to flourish and for cultures to grow like the British 60’s explosion, a healthy public domain is needed which means shorter copyright terms or even no copyright terms.

Copyright is never about paying artists/creators. Copyright was designed by the distributors (book publishers, record labels and movie studios) so who do you think benefits most from Copyright.

For centuries, the distributors have campaigned hard to promote how Copyright is there to help writers and artists. They have PR writers who tell the story of the poor artist who needs Copyright to pay the rent and how dare do people, copy a song instead of paying a price set by the industry for it. These PR writers have turning copying a song, (two songs exists) into theft (now product A is not in your possession).

Yes, Copyright operators do pay artists as a means to make it look like it’s doing the right thing, however more monies end up in the pockets of the organisations than artists.

And all of the great PR work the labels, movie studios and book publishers did in selling the copyright story is biting back at them, via the heirs of dead artists (who in reality should have no rights to songs they didn’t create) taking them to court with plagiarism law suits and what not.

Sort of like our governments who finance revolutionaries, only to have those revolutionaries rise up against their financiers once they seize power.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Progress Is Derivative – One Riff To Rule Them All

Spotify Playlist

Remember “Progress Is Derivative” means to take the best things of what has come before and merge it all together to come up with something new. In some cases it might sound similar to something in the past and in other cases it might sound unique, original and innovative. And the “One Riff To Rule Them All” is a perfect example of how so many songs can have the same riff conceptually and still be able to stand on their own.

One Riff To Rule Them All…
Yep, it’s the A pedal point riff… It all started with a motor city madman called Ted Nugent, and his song “Stranglehold” released in 1975 (actually it’s a bluesy groove that has been around for a lot longer before then). Since then, the riff has morphed to inspire the following songs.

  • “Hell Bent For Leather” by Judas Priest released in 1978.
  • The intro to “Swords and Tequila” from Riot released in 1981.
  • The main riff to “Never Surrender” by Saxon released in 1981.
  • The main riff to “Riding With Angels” by Samson (with Bruce Dickinson on vocals), released in 1981.
  • The main riff to “Hellbound” by Tygers of Pan Tang released in 1981.
  • The main riff for “Flash Rockin’ Man” by Accept released in 1982.
  • The Intro in “Curse Of The Pharaohs” from Mercyful Fate released in 1983.
  • The main riff in “Power And The Glory” from Saxon released in 1983.
  • The main riff to “Stand Up And Shout” from Dio released in 1983.
  • The main riff to “Seek And Destroy” by Raven released in 1983.
  • The intro and main riff in “Two Minutes To Midnight” from Iron Maiden released in 1984.
  • The main riff to “Heavy Metal Breakdown” by Grave Digger released in 1984.
  • The main riff to “Phantoms Of Death” by Helloween released in 1985.
  • The main riff to “Skin O My Teeth” by Megadeth released in 1992.
  • The main riff to “Break The Chains” from Tokyo Blade.
  • A small variation of “the riff to rule them all” morphed into “Welcome To Hell” from Venom released in 1981.
  • And this morphed into “Looks That Kill” from Motley Crue released in 1983 and became known as the Sunset Riff. So it was no surprise that other Sunset guitarists started using it.
  • “Young Girls” from Dokken in 1983 has a riff that’s similar.
  • “Tell The World” from Ratt, released in 1983 also has it.

I guess you can’t keep a good riff down. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Music is derivative. Always has been and always will be.

Ted Nugent’s originality in the 70’s is due to him writing derivative versions of blues grooves. There would be no metal music without rock and roll and there would be no rock and roll without country and blues. In the early blues (circa 30’s), copying and transforming was the norm. The same blues song would be recorded by different artists in different states. Sometimes, the titles would change. No lawyers got involved and especially no courts. In return, this allowed the blues sound to grow.

If you look at the bands above, they all built careers from the same patterned riff without a lawsuit to be seen.

What an amazing concept?

Stone Temple Pilots
Fans of Kiss smiled when they heard “Sex Type Thing” from Stone Temple Pilots. The main riff is influenced by “War Machine”. How strange it is, that one of Kiss’s heaviest songs is co-written by pop rock songwriters, Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance with Gene Simmons.

Motley Crue
The Chorus riff to “Ten Seconds to Love” sounds like it was influenced by a certain riff in “Rock & Roll” by The Plasmatics. Actually they sound the same, but who cares. Both are different songs and unique and as you all know, I am a fan of the “progress is derivative” viewpoint.

The Led Zeppelin Effect Again
The impact of “Immigrant Song” cannot be underestimated.

Recently I heard it in “Siberian Queen” (2012) from The Night Flight Orchestra. The drum pattern is Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (1970) and the guitar riffs reference “Achilles Last Stand” in the intro and verse riff.

Meanwhile, John Sykes re-invented himself as Jimmy Page when he combined “Black Dog” with “Immigrant Song” in “Still Of The Night” (1987). In case you are not sure, it’s the riff that comes in after the intro singing.

Then there are the obvious clones of “Immigrant Song” in “Hold Her Tight” by The Osmonds (1972) and “Burning” by Sweet (1973).

Music is and always will be derivative. Enjoy.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Perpetual Copyright and The Public Domain

There is a lot of hate for the Public Domain from the corporations that hold the Copyrights to a lot of culture and also to creators who created those cultural icons. But without the Public Domain, those creators wouldn’t have a bed of influences that allowed them to create their works without fear of lawsuits and copyright infringement.

Hell, even all of the blockbusters coming out these days are story boarded by using scenes from films that maybe should be in the Public Domain. Check out this article from The Guardian about how “Rogue One” and “War For The Planet Of The Apes” came together. As the article states;

“.. the film’s initial “cut”, designed to map out the movie before any shooting took place, was cobbled together by editor Colin Goudie using footage from hundreds of other existing films. For protagonist Jyn Erso’s early encounter with Mon Mothma and her comrades on the Rebel council, Goudie substituted in the interrogation scene from the beginning of Aliens; for the bit where Erso and her pals break into the Imperial data vault, the editor inserted a similar scene from 1983’s WarGames. Old Star Wars movies were also pilfered from. Using this celluloid patchwork quilt, director Gareth Edwards was able to devise a working template for Rogue One (albeit one that would later be ripped apart and stitched back together following extensive reshoots).”

Yes people, it’s okay to be influenced. It’s okay to take an existing work and use it as a template to build upon. No art is created in a vacuum. As the article further states;

“We watched every Planet of the Apes movie, war movies, westerns, The Empire Strikes Back,” Reeves told About Movies. “We just thought, ‘We have to pretend we have all the time in the world,’ even though we had limited time. We got really inspired.”
Matt Reeves – Director of “War For The Planet Of The Apes”

Just because they used other films for inspiration doesn’t make the movie crap. As the article further states;

The fact that many of the above movies are derivative does not make them bad films. Plagiarism, in many ways, is the oil that greases the cogs of the studio machine. Each film-maker takes something from the last, and hopefully passes something on to their successor. It has been ever so since the early days of silent film, and indeed even the era of Shakespeare.

Progress is derivative has been my motto since I started creating music. Be influenced by what you see, hear and read.

And all of this leads me to the Public Domain.

Each year on January 1, certain works should be entering the Public Domain. But in the biggest market, the U.S, the large movie studios and record labels, lobbied hard to change the Copyright laws and since 1978, nothing really enters the Public Domain in the U.S.

The below works from 1960 should all be in the Public Domain in 2017, however they aren’t. And we will not see them in the Public Domain for another 39 years.

The team over at Duke University always put together a comprehensive list. If the below works entered the public domain, creators could use them to build new works without fear of a copyright infringement case. Fans could make their own clips and homages or new movies without fear of copyright infringement.

Here are some movies that should be in the Public Domain that I recognise;

  • The Time Machine
  • Psycho
  • Spartacus
  • Exodus
  • The Magnificent Seven
  • Ocean’s 11
  • The Alamo
  • The Andy Griffith Show (first episodes)
  • The Flintstones (first episodes)

Here are some books that should be in the Public Domain that I recognise;

  • Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
  • John Updike, Rabbit, Run
  • Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

In the period these works were created, the writers and movie studios had a thriving public domain which they could call upon. They all created the above works, knowing that in time, the works would fall into the Public Domain and people would be free to use these books and movies in their own stories.

But the money in perpetual copyright created business that make millions, which in turn led to these businesses to pump politicians full of money, so they write and vote for laws that grants them a government monopoly.

There is research out that shows only 2% of works between 55 and 75 years old continue to retain commercial value. So apart from the famous works, the 98% remainder of the books and movies do not have any dollar value, however people cannot use them to build new works. No one benefits from perpetual copyright.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Soul Stealer – John Sykes

It’s the opening track, released in 1995 on the “Out of my Tree” Sykes album. No one even knows it. On YouTube, a couple of fan accounts have it and combined, the number of views are less than 10,000. It is on Spotify, however no one is listening to it.

Intro A
0.00 to 0.09
It’s the simple E note staccato guitar riff that sets up the bluesy groove. I’m talking about “Cowboys From Hell” style staccato where you take bluesy grooves and metal them up. It just grabs you from the outset.

Intro B
0.10 to 0.16
It quickly transitions into a Motorhead “Ace Of Spades” style riff, however while Ace Of Spades is all speed, this one has more swing and groove.

In “Ace Of Spades”, Fast Eddie Clarke holds an E5 power chord (E,B notes) then a Eflat5 power chord (E, B flat notes) and then A/E chord (E, A notes) over an E pedal point. In “Soul Stealer”, John Sykes plays B flat, B octaves and then B, to B flat to G octaves over an E pedal point.

Those 16 seconds are a lesson in song writing through experiences, influences and time spent in the business. All the excess fat is trimmed away, and in 16 seconds you have a kick-ass lean riff that makes you sit up and take notice.

Verse
0.17 to 0.39
It starts off with the Intro B riff and then moves into an Em blues chromatic descending riff (which would become the Chorus riff later) and picked back up by some C to G chords on the first run through on the second run through, Sykes plays ascending power chords, B5, C5, C#5 and D5.

Cold hearted woman
Boy she gonna mess with your mind
Cold hearted woman
Take you to the highest high
Love you till the morning
Shake it through the night
Share your darkest secrets
Make you feel all right

The clichéd lyrics take away from the music. In my book, the lyrical message could make or break a song.

For example, as good as the music was from Randy Rhoads, if Bob Daisley wrote lyrics about getting laid and had “please” rhyming with “knees” and “Crazy Train” was called “Wicked Whore” or something silly, then all of that great music that Rhoads created would be lost in the lyrical message. But the lyric line “Goin off the rails like a crazy train” is universal and it will never sound dated. The lyric line, “Go ahead and Jump” is universal and it will never get dated.

Dokken is one band that had lyrics on certain occasions that didn’t do justice to the music of the song. “Unchain The Night” is a perfect example. Musically, it is brilliant. The vocal melodies are strong. The lyrics, blah. Does anyone know how you can chain up the night, so that you can then write a song about unchaining it?

Regardless of what is said about rock music and grunge, by 1995, rock music was still VERY POPULAR to write and still a big seller, however the lyrical content and the look was very different to the Seventies and Eighties and it needed to be more in the alternative/grunge vein.

Pearl Jam is a bloody good rock band, regardless of which city they came from. Alice In Chains are a good rock band. Both of those bands sold well. Megadeth sold well during this period. Dream Theater sold well during this period. However their lyrics, weren’t derivative of the Seventies classic rock and the Eighties Glam/Hair Metal movement.

Check out the lyrics to the song “Black” from Pearl Jam as an example of writing about a woman/relationship that isn’t clichéd and derivative of the Eighties/Seventies movement.

In saying that, while David Coverdale was probably the most broken-hearted singer out there, John Sykes is the singer that dealt with cold-hearted and black-hearted women. It became a recurring theme that appeared on each release.

Chorus
0.40 to 0.47
The Chorus riff was introduced in the verses briefly, so when it comes up in the Chorus it is not unknown to the listener. This is a brilliant piece of song writing musically.

Cause she’s a soul stealer
Dream weaver
Gonna steal your heart away

Breakdown (which is the Intro A riff again)
1.19 to 1.26
That intro E staccato riff is back again.

Solo
1.27 to 1.57
John Sykes first and foremost is a lead guitarist. But in 1995, the lead guitarist was not the focal point of the band. The guitar poses and facial expressions didn’t cut it anymore. However, you can’t take away a person’s ability to shred. It’s like a fast car. You can crank it from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds. John Sykes wasn’t about whammy bar theatrics and sweep picking. He was all about the pentatonic scales. First and foremost, the lead had to be melodic and not just a finger exercise.

It’s a simply rock song but musically, a very busy and well-orchestrated song. It wasn’t made for radio airplay. It was made for the fan to enjoy the craftsmanship of an exceptional guitar player and song writer.

“Out of My Tree” was available as an import in Australia for more than $80 dollars. I didn’t hear this album until Napster hit in 1999 when I downloaded it illegally. Sykes did not fit into the system, which now wanted industrial and alternative rock. With any album release back in 1995, an artist needed to have the right people behind it, to push and promote it. The mere fact that the album was geo-blocked from worldwide release and only available as an import in a lot of countries is evidence that the wrong record label was behind it.

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