Songs that sound like other songs... rip offs or not?

And you never cease to mention that he never ceases to amaze you, either.

:lol: Nor will I...
He's amazing me right now as I watch him trades solos with Steve Vai in the 'Live At The Astoria, London' dvd... :worship:

A lot of Sym X stuff sounds a lot like earlier stuff they've done... Because I've worked backwards through their albums, I've heard stuff which I've been like, Oh they copied that bit from the Odyssey there, then realised that actually they copied it from the earlier stuff...

When I first heard the beginning of 'Evolution' it reminded me heaps of 'Sea Of Lies', only heavier

One of the vocal lines in 'Egypt', sounds exactly like the chorus of 'The Relic'

Alot of the stuff on TDWOT sounds very similar to stuff on Damnation Game, but I guess they were just trying to improve a lot of their ideas there...

The lyrics from 'Accolade II' seemed directly ripped off of 'The Accolade'... :lol:

I don't really mind, and I'm not having a go at them, these parts just seemed very similar in my opinion...
 
Well usually it doesn't sound good because you have already heard it done better by the artist who originally wrote it. As someone else already stated its an issue of musical creativity.

I don't care if its a riff taken from a not very well known band and done better by another band, but when its like a famous guitar riff or famous vocal line thats been taken by another band then its just stupid.

However some bands do it not for the sake of stealing it for themselves but as a tribute to the bands they love, which sometimes does work well.

well I also think it's a matter of opinion on whether the band actually ripped off anything or not.

I've heard quite often that Opeth takes pieces from old bands and makes their own songs and I'd much prefer to listen to Opeth make a song out of those small pieces.

Plus it's just music, why make a big deal out of it? lol I'd hate to see some lame copyright war.
 
A lot of Sym X stuff sounds a lot like earlier stuff they've done... Because I've worked backwards through their albums, I've heard stuff which I've been like, Oh they copied that bit from the Odyssey there, then realised that actually they copied it from the earlier stuff...

When I first heard the beginning of 'Evolution' it reminded me heaps of 'Sea Of Lies', only heavier

One of the vocal lines in 'Egypt', sounds exactly like the chorus of 'The Relic'

Alot of the stuff on TDWOT sounds very similar to stuff on Damnation Game, but I guess they were just trying to improve a lot of their ideas there...

The lyrics from 'Accolade II' seemed directly ripped off of 'The Accolade'... :lol:

Lets not forget the heavy riff in The Death of Balance sounds almost identical to the heavy riff in the mid section of A Lesson Before Dying.
 
Besides, Queen did a VERY similar synth melody in 1972 in the song "Father To Son". Guess they win. :D

On to more riffs and songs lifted by Dream Theater! ;)
- "Solitary Shell" is an almost identical copy of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill"
- the way "The Great Debate" builds up to the first riff and said riff itself are very very Tool-ish
- the chord progression in the slow, dark section in the middle of "Misunderstood" sounds a lot like Red-era King Crimson
- Octavarium is full of nods to the past... Rudess's first fast keys solo mirrors Marillion's "Garden Party", the use of flute in the beginning reminds me of vintage Genesis
 
The power/prog band Majestic have a song called Black Moons Rising, the main intro riff and the verse of this song sounds almost exactly like Deja Vu by Yngwie Malmsteen, no joke, they changed it up a little byt doing something with the way its noted but compare the two songs and you will laugh just like I did.

You can find that exact sequence of notes in literally hundreds of songs, its just running up the scale 3 notes at a time, i do that as a warm up excercise in all my different modes.
 
You can find that exact sequence of notes in literally hundreds of songs, its just running up the scale 3 notes at a time, i do that as a warm up excercise in all my different modes.

Oh believe me I know that, I use it to warm up as well, but Deju Vu is one of the few songs that I have heard that uses it as the main riff in a song, considering the large influence that Yngwie has on a lot of musicians especially in this style of music I'm sure that guys in a band like Majestic are no strangers to Yngwie's material so the fact that they use (almost) the exact same sequence of notes and then a similar arrpegio at the end to finish the sequence is a little suspect, then also as I mentioned the vocal pattern during the verse is the same as in Deja Vu. I personally don't believe that it was an accident.
 
A lot of Sym X stuff sounds a lot like earlier stuff they've done... Because I've worked backwards through their albums, I've heard stuff which I've been like, Oh they copied that bit from the Odyssey there, then realised that actually they copied it from the earlier stuff...

I've noticed this as well. The clean guitar part at about 4 minutes into The Divine Wings of Tragedy sounds a lot like the acoustic part about the same time into The Odyssey... and also like various parts of Communion and the Oracle. Also, there's a clean section with echo in The Odyssey (about 21 minutes in) that sounds a lot like something from A Lesson Before Dying.

But I don't mind those things at all, I've just noticed them.
 
On to more riffs and songs lifted by Dream Theater! ;)
- "Solitary Shell" is an almost identical copy of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill"
- the way "The Great Debate" builds up to the first riff and said riff itself are very very Tool-ish
- the chord progression in the slow, dark section in the middle of "Misunderstood" sounds a lot like Red-era King Crimson
- Octavarium is full of nods to the past... Rudess's first fast keys solo mirrors Marillion's "Garden Party", the use of flute in the beginning reminds me of vintage Genesis

That's the Dream Theater way. Octavarium was basically a cover of various Coldplay, Linkin Park, U2, and Muse songs.

By the way, I don't think Solitary Shell and Solsbury Hill sound THAT much alike. The only similarity is that they are both poppy songs in 7/4 with a quarter note kick drum pattern.
 
Two song ideas, I'm not sure if people would agree or even thought of:

- The first heavy riff of Dream Theater's 'The killing hand' sounds like the slow riff in Megadeth's 'Holy wars... the punishment due.'

- The chorus of 'A winter's dream pt. 2' sounds like 'Making love' by Yngwie.