When Lady Gaga released her new single, "Born This Way," in February, it took less than a minute of the title track from her upcoming disc for fans and detractors alike to scream "Express Yourself!" in unison. Yes, it does sound like an amped-up version of the 1989 Madonna track. A lot.
This made us search for more songs that sound eerily like other hits that came before. Some are probably accidents, like the Rolling Stones nicking a k.d. lang melody, or Arcade Fire echoing Blondie. The latter is probably more likely the case of Rocks Off really rooting for a Régine Chassagne solo album.
Some are egregiously aggressive knock-offs, like Kelly Clarkson seemingly stealing the hook from Spoon's "I Turn My Camera On" for "All I Ever Wanted," from 2009's album of the same name. Has anyone told Britt Daniel and the boys?
Ed. Note: You could have told him yourself... he was sitting in the same row as us at Arcade Fire.
In some cases the similarities are too much like Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" and David Bowie & Queen's "Under Pressure." Mr. Ice ended up paying royalties on that one, even though it didn't make the Dallas-born paper thug too happy.
Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme and Huey Lewis & the News' "I Want A New Drug" were so much alike that the two parties fought it out in court, with Lewis coming out on top.
If you dig even deeper, you will hear that both of them probably nicked M's "Pop Muzik" as well.
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