Plagiarism?

Singing in the shower the other day I noticed it was possible to make a mashup of Van Halen's Panama and Glen Frey's The Heat is On.

Sing it in your head:

Panama (guitar riff)
The heat is o-on (saxophone riff)
Panama (guitar riff)
Oh it's on the street
etc.

Full Songs:



Both songs were composed and released in 1984. Van Halen has the advantage of about 5 months. Panama came first. The Heat is On was not written by Frey, so he's off the hook. Instead it was written by a couple of record producers/songwriters for the Eddie Murphy movie Beverly Hills Cop. Frey just agreed to record the song and sang the lead and played guitar on the popular recording. The verses diverge somewhat but the main chorus and chord patterns match perfectly.

Does this mean it was copyright infringement? That is a technical term from the legal profession, and I'll leave it to the lawyers.

On the other hand, it is an established technique among music producers to use previous hit songs as a songwriting prompt for the artist they are working with. It's one of the tricks of the trade. It is also a practice of songwriters to try and create a song that was inspired by previous artists that they like.

One my favorite songwriters, the Canadian artist Bryan Adams, created a couple of such songs. The most obvious is "Run to You," which was meant to recreate the sound of Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper." Was it plagiarized? No. But it unmistakably copies the sound and fealing of the original. It isn't a cheap copy. It's a tribute.

Of course, Bryan Adams is now in a good position to say that, because his career was much more commercially successful than that of the Blue Oyster Cult. The Heat is On is a little different matter. It was composed by a couple of very successful pop music producers. It's completely reasonable to say they completely ripped it off. On the other hand, my point could be invalidated by anyone producing an earlier song than Panama with the same chord pattern.

Plagiarism is difficult to pin down in the music industry.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pit Bull Reality Distortion Field

Book Review: Forgotten Civilization - New Discoveries On The Solar-Induced Dark Age, by Robert Schoch with Catherine Ulissey

The Transfer Portal Was A Bad Idea