Beck vs. Blur: this is the thread where we try to determine who has "borrowed" the most tunes

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Inspired by the 'how did Oasis get away with ripping off "Bang a Gong"' thread... both Beck n Blur have made careers plundering the more obscure, but how many precise examples can we cite here...

Beck:
"Beautiful Way" = VUs "Countess From Hong Kong"
"Debra" = I forget which track, but the guitar chords/intro are a direct quote of one of Bowie's songs on "Young Americans"
that Serge Gainsbourg stuff on "Sea Change" (also quotes Kool Keith for the "lovely lady/girl you drive me crazy" refrain)

Blur:
"MOR" = Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging"
(I'm not overly familiar w/Blur's catalog meself...)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:03 (twenty years ago)

(uh, the Kool Keith quote is in "Debra".)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

didnt beck poach the main riff from a ramsey lewis song? i think its in the credits.

― ppp, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

didnt beck poach the main riff from a ramsey lewis song

Beck often approaches songs as a sample artist. Doens't that qualify most Hip-Hop in this deabte?

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

yeah I'm not talking about samples per se, I'm talking more about instances of Beck/Blur borrowing the chords/structures/melodies of other songs and playing them themselves.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:27 (twenty years ago)

yeah I'm not talking about samples per se, I'm talking more about instances of Beck/Blur borrowing the chords/structures/melodies of other songs and playing them themselves.

Happy Mondays? Aren't they based on this concept?

(Not trying to play devil's advocate, but I'm struggling with this one)

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

I don't know, are they? I guess there's that Beatles lyric they used, and "Step On"... I'm unaware of any other overt similarities to others' material in the Happy Mondays catalog.

let me break it down in a little more detail. Beck's "Beautiful Way" uses the same chords as "Countess from Hong Kong" for the verses. The guitar part, the fingerpicking pattern, is the same. The vocal melody is very similar. The tempo and rhythm are the same. "Countess From Hong Kong" is not sampled at all during the song (as far as I can tell anyway).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

Blur:
"MOR" = Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging"
(I'm not overly familiar w/Blur's catalog meself...)

You started the thread, man.

(The end of 'Bugman' sounds like 'Suffragette City' as well. Also Damon fucked this girl that ripped off a Wire song.

― M Philip O'Nyman (Ferg), Friday, 3 June 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

the Elastica/Wire thing is precisely the kind of thing I'm talking about. I just wanted to narrow this phenomenon down to Blur and Beck because both of them seem so fond of this songwriting "technique".

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 3 June 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

I'll give you twenty-four hours to come up with five examples for Blur. Or the Happy Mondays for that matter.

― Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Friday, 3 June 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

Blur haven't "borrowed" any tunes other than "Boys Keep Swinging" for "MOR". They "borrowed" a lot of styles for their mid 90s albums though. This is often called "pastiche" and is one of the highest possible levels of musicianship when done well.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 3 June 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

Mm, I'd have said they copped other people's poses rather than actively ripped their tunes off.

― M Philip O'Nyman (Ferg), Friday, 3 June 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

ok im genuinely puzzled by the happy mondays statement here

― charltonlido (gareth), Saturday, 4 June 2005 00:23 (twenty years ago)

ok im genuinely puzzled by the happy mondays statement here

From the AllMusic bio:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:j82gtq5ztu44~T1

Appropriately, their music was as convoluted. Happy Mondays were one of the first rock bands to integrate hip-hop techniques into their music. They didn't sample, but they borrowed melodies and lyrics and, in the process, committed rock blasphemy.

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Saturday, 4 June 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

blur: London Loves, stolen from Owner of a Lonely Heart

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 4 June 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

uh, who wrote that Allmusic bio?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:20 (twenty years ago)

There's one tune off sea change that quite obviously rips off those sweet major/minor string resolutions from Nick Drake's "River Man".

"sample artist"...Ha

― Captain Entropy (Captain Entropy), Saturday, 4 June 2005 05:20 (twenty years ago)

Beck vs. Blur: this is the thread where we try to determine who has "borrowed" the most tunes
Waitasec...are you sure you don't mean Beck vs Oasis when you talk about song biters/filchers?

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:11 (twenty years ago)

uh, who wrote that Allmusic bio?

GEIR HONGRO.

― Negativa, True Believer (You know you love it when I'm dressed in drag) (Barima), Saturday, 4 June 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

Geir would not say "rock blasphemy," he would say pop.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:20 (twenty years ago)

"Parklife" is a ripoff of "Kill the Sex Player"

― Mr. Snrub, Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

Beck gets a pass for some of his borrowings in return for Kid Rock's theft of "Where It's At".

― Curt (cgould), Saturday, 4 June 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

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