The Future Is Now

[tylercosgrove1989]

This might have already been mentioned but I hate the term "ripped off" now because every time a song sounds like another, the band must have "ripped them off." I truly believe that The Offspring has NEVER ripped anyone off. They have written songs that ended up sounding a little bit like another song but it's not like they did it on purpose. As if they were like, "Hey this album is taking too long. Grab some Greenday albums, Noodles. We're gonna rip them the fuck off." I write songs all the time and most of them I end up throwing in the garbage because it sounds too much like something else. With time going by it just gets harder and harder to make something 100% fresh.

[XYlophonetreeZ]

I was unaware that the term "rip off" has such a cut-and-dry connotation of evil intentions and anal sex. I just used it to mean that the songs sound similar.

[Hey Man Where's Everybody]

*sigh*

“The key to great rock and roll is to take the same three chords and make them sound new.” - Noodles

we have thousand of years of people making music, hundreds of years of people writing that shit down, a couple hundred guitar, a few decades of it being recorded and about 70 years of it being electric.

At this stage, EVERYTHING is derivative. There is no 'new' there is no 'rip off'. There is a finite amount of stuff one can do with any instrument and a tiny percentage of that finite stuff is even legible.

Any current rock band is drawing upon a plethora of influences and it will often be the case that one rock band is influenced by the same rock band that another rock band will be.

It is utter folly to say 'this bands song sounds like this other band'. OF COURSE IT DOES. as does that other band sound like a gazillion others before.

Hell, Dirty Magic totally rips off Fleetwood Mac if you believe some people (http://www.youtubhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcawnRIyeoke.com/watch?v=pcawnRIyeok from 3:10 ish onwards)

The people who whinge about such and such band sounding like such and such other band most often have the tiniest amount of musical knowledge. I'm not suggesting you do, but I'd advise against getting drawn in to their shit-flinging.

(The following post is made by an educated music theory nerd, so please spare me the 'you have the tiniest knowledge of music' spiel).

Yes, you're right. There are only so many notes, and only so many configurations of them. Apologists love to make this point, as if it's some novel concept that everyone else is oblivious to. Yes, of course, new music builds upon concepts that have been part of the melodic canon forever. It's a time-honored tradition that has been around forever. The criticism that is leveled against the Offspring is not the usual "oh, these three notes are the same three notes as in another song", but that they go out of their way to emulate hits from other artists to achieve success in the charts, whether by directly copying specific musical elements (such as the painfully transparent "Rise and Fall"/"American Idiot" rip) or by following a template ("YGGFK" was obviously fashioned so as to appeal to the Fall Out Boy / PaTD fan contingent).

Something that a lot of Offspring fans seem to overlook (or are being willfully ignorant of) is the fact that these accusations have been with the band for a long time. You don't really hear it about other bands that often, at least not to this extent. Back in the Ixnay days, there was outraged about how much "All I Want" sounded like Bad Religion (yes, I know the "Protocol" story, save it), how much "Me & My Old Lady" sounded like Jane's Addiction, etc. The following year, "Why Don't You Get a Job" shamelessly replicated the melody to The Beatles "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" (I'm honestly surprised no legal action was taken); years later, "Want You Bad" blatantly ripped off The Descendant's "Coolidge", "Defy You" outright stole from Staind's "Outside" (the bridge melody) while copying the nu-metal format that was popular at the time. RAFRAG is filled with these lifts. You've heard them all, so I won't bore you with them.

I'm not saying all the comparisons are actual cases of plagiarism. Sometimes people just find associations that aren't even there. But fans do need to wake up to the fact that this just isn't the most creative band around. When so many people make the same observation about the band, at some point you have to open your eyes and think about whether you're the one who's being myopic.

[Britpunk]

...

Yep, which was all very sweet. But if you actually read my post, I was actually addressing some other dude saying MCR ripped off the offsping but if you wanna mis-interpret, go ahead.

I'm well aware that the offspring sound like a bunch of other bands. I'm well aware that a bunch of other bands sound like the offspring. my point is basically that I don't care. The Offspring do it a lot better than the bands they may or may not have borrowed from, hence I like them more.

[NoGuessing]

All I Want sounds like Bad Religion? Wtf, I listen to that band all the time. Point me in the direction of a specific song so I can compare, because all I hear is a fast and typically Offspring song.

I wasn't aware of some of those accusations. Might give those songs a spin. I knew YGGFK is taking the dance pop punk genre and giving it some testicles, and about WDYGAJ though.

What surprises me is in the current climate where companies buy patents just so they can sue people, that no one has put these guys in court yet if every song claimed to be a rip off is true.

[Hey Man Where's Everybody]

Yep, which was all very sweet. But if you actually read my post, I was actually addressing some other dude saying MCR ripped off the offsping but if you wanna mis-interpret, go ahead.

I'm well aware that the offspring sound like a bunch of other bands. I'm well aware that a bunch of other bands sound like the offspring. my point is basically that I don't care. The Offspring do it a lot better than the bands they may or may not have borrowed from, hence I like them more.

Good deal. I misread you, and I apologize for getting pedantic. This has all been brewing in my head after hearing "Days Go By".

[NoGuessing]

Days Go By is very derivative, but of The Cult.

That's the only thing that annoys me about the accusations flying around youtube. Foo Fighters hardcore fans thinking it's a rip off of Times Like These. Hardly. I listen to that song a lot as well.

[Hey Man Where's Everybody]

Days Go By is very derivative, but of The Cult.

That's the only thing that annoys me about the accusations flying around youtube. Foo Fighters hardcore fans thinking it's a rip off of Times Like These. Hardly. I listen to that song a lot as well.

It's not just Foo Fighters hardcore fans. Most everyone who listens to that song points out the similarity to "Times Like These". Yes, the riff sounds a lot like The Cult, but the vocal melody and overall musical structure is very clearly modeled after "Times Like These". Especially when you listen to the early version of the song, before they re-did the vocal melody.

I don't want to be responsible for turning this thread into a repeat of the "Days Go By" thread, but it seems a very obvious parallel to make, and really hard to defend as a simple accident, especially considering the guitar arrangements.

[XYlophonetreeZ]

Days Go By is very derivative, but of The Cult.

That's the only thing that annoys me about the accusations flying around youtube. Foo Fighters hardcore fans thinking it's a rip off of Times Like These. Hardly. I listen to that song a lot as well.

I'll never be able to entirely see where these people are coming from, because I first heard "You Will Find a Way," which was, unquestionably, a lot like Times Like These. So for me, when I heard "Days Go By," it sounded like a good-enough disguise even if I thought the song was a little bland. I have no idea what my reaction would have been had I never heard "You Will Find a Way."

[Hey Man Where's Everybody]

All I Want sounds like Bad Religion? Wtf, I listen to that band all the time. Point me in the direction of a specific song so I can compare, because all I hear is a fast and typically Offspring song.

Brett criticized "All I Want" as a Bad Religion rip-off when it came out, and I remember a bunch of people joined in the criticism. I defended them at the time, because it sounded like Brett was still sore about them leaving Epitaph... plus, all of that 90s "skate-punk" (I hate that term, but it encompasses the specific style that I'm referring to) seemed to share a common musical vernacular, melodically and structurally.

But then this story came to light, and the accusations seemed to make a little more sense.