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For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the r

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. It shouldn't even be copyrightable. The guitar is full of things like this that are not great feats of musical theory but simple physical movements that are bound to happen. This is why guitar music generally sounds so derivative, because there are a number of obvious steps that all players will find quite quickly. Why should you get paid for the guitar equivalent of pressing all of the white notes on a piano? Edit: typo

ebbv 9y ago
Chord progressions aren’t copyright-able. So no, that obvious thing isn’t. What is subject to copyright is the melody. That’s what they got the claim on. The vocal melody.
- golemotron 9y ago
  And it's the same melody. It really is. Open and shut case.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    An open and shut case for the Hollies. How do Radiohead feature? If I copy a song, then lose an infringement suit to the original composer, can I really claim a subsequent infringement?
    - ebbv 9y ago
      Radiohead only gave up a tiny percentage of their rights on "Creep", so yeah they can still make claims on it.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  Which as the article states is astonishingly similar to the Hollies song. Pick up a guitar and strum that progression in the rather obvious way that it appears on either record (like someone who is rather less than a virtuoso). Now add some words so the syllables fit with the strumming pattern...If you are not now singing that dreary melody you are a true musical genius.
- shmageggy 9y ago
  It probably didn't help that the drum groove is identical as well.
d13 9y ago
But of all the millions of random experiments you can make while a learning an instrument, only a few of them sound "nice" - and I would argue they sound nice because they sound like something you've already heard. There's a vast universe of truly original music waiting to be discovered - the future of music - for adventurous musician brave enough to embrace truly ugly sounds.
- cousin_it 9y ago
  That's not the future, that's the past. Check out atonal music, almost a century ago. Turns out no one wants to listen to it even after repeated exposure. The future of music is stuff that sounds good but not because you've already heard it. To create it you need a vivid musical imagination, not randomly messing around with an instrument. Read about Michael Jackson's creative process. He would imagine a song fully in his head and then sing each note of each part to his band: "here's the first chord, first note, second note, third note. Here's the second chord..."
sova 9y ago
Did the judge ever play guitar? I hear anyone can.
- petre 9y ago
  The judge doesn't need to play guitar. S/he could just summon in court an independent party that can play guitar and ask questions relevant to the case.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    I think the OP was making a joke. Radiohead had a contemporary song to Creep called 'Anyone can play guitar'
    - leejo 9y ago
      Not only that - they wrote at least two songs that referenced how much they hated "Creep" and how it had become a crutch. It's why I find it hard to believe that "Radiohead" are making the infringement claim here and it's much more likely the record label who own the rights to the recording who are making the claim.
mentos 9y ago
If I was a lawyer I'd strum those 4 open E chords on a guitar then play all three songs. The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe, Radiohead - Creep, Lana Del Rey - Get Free Then maybe I'd make some argument about anyone who made 3 left turns and a right turn to get to the court house today owes me a royalty for using my elegant route without my permission. If you want to get to the court house tomorrow you have to figure out any other permutation but mine.
- thruflo22 9y ago
  Reminds me of the four chords song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
  - rrauenza 9y ago
    ...and the Pachebel Rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
- wgj 9y ago
  This is a pretty good demonstration on acoustic guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV8jYTfxJTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV8jYTfxJTI
- QuadmasterXLII 9y ago
  Add the Steven universe theme song to the list!
billsix 9y ago
> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. E major, G# major, A major, A minor The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. > Why should you get paid for the guitar equivalent of pressing all of the white notes on a piano? Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major Secondly, although Lana's infringement may have honestly been accidental, the progression and melody are extremely similar to Creep.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  > The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I am suggesting that knowledge of musical theory had no part in this at all. You need to think in the terms of an indie guitarist of average ability like Thom Yorke. Open, the fret after the one with the dot on, the next fret with a dot, now take your little finger off. That is how I learnt to play Creep in the mid-ninetees! That is how (non-classical) guitarists tend to learn, and why so many people can play guitar. > Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major The equivalent, not the same as.
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    > Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I'm probably not supposed to say this sort of thing here, but you're surely trolling.
    - jimnotgym 9y ago
      I think I may have got the tone wrong here, but it was more self deprecating than trolling. I am a competent guitarist, but know little musical theory. The same was true of many of my friends. The guitar is easy to start out on and impress some non-players with. You can get a very long way with a few chords and tab. However I would never claim to be a musician. I don't read music, I don't think in scales. I used to hang round with music students who marvelled at my solo improvisations, but I couldn't compete with them when it came to music theory. I learned the blues scale shape and added the interesting notes which my friends had proper names for..but it didn't stop me playing songs. Those who do learn music theory have my utmost respect, they could do harmonic things I can only marvel at, but I knew 20x more guitarists that just learned songs from the magazines (before the internet), song books and each other until they had enough building blocks to do their own thing
Joeboy 9y ago
With a few jazzy exceptions, you can play any pop/rock song by sliding an open E chord up and down the neck and sometimes taking a finger off. All you're saying there is that the song is constructed of major and minor chords, which I'd guess a comfortable 95% of pop/rock songs are (guitar-based or otherwise). Edit: Also you can write any computer program by simply pressing the buttons on a computer keyboard in the right order.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  > Also you can write any computer program by simply pressing the buttons on a computer keyboard in the right order But you couldn't write many useful programs by simply typing the top row of the keyboard in ascending order and repeating for 3 minutes 59 > you can play any pop/rock song by sliding an open E chord up and down the neck and sometimes taking a finger off. Exactly, why do we allow them to copyright them? The point with 'Creep' is that they are physically close together and in a simple order. Its a great beginner song for someone learning barre chords
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    My point is, you're negating any kind of craftsmanship by reducing it to the mechanical actions involved, which is basically equivalent to saying programming is just typing. I thought your comment was saying that Creep in particular is just a series of major and minor chords, not that songs in general are just series of major and minor chords. If the argument is that songs in general shouldn't be copyrightable then fair enough I guess.
hashkb 9y ago
What's really awesome is that when you become "good" at guitar you realize the mind melting shredding you hear is also super obvious. Your fingers just do it because you're on a guitar. All lawsuits involving guitar should be settled on stage. Every other instrument knows guitarists are cheaters.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bsaul 9y ago
a piece of music has four elements : harmony, melody, rythm and sound. you gave only one similarity, the truth is that the rythm and melody are also 100% identical, and one would argue the sound is pretty similar as well ( but it's more due to both songs being western rock/pop).
manmal 9y ago
(Fellow guitarist here) I agree, there are only so many chord progressions that work in a pop song.. perhaps 30 or even less? But the chords are not the only problem here. Listen to the voices‘ melodies of „my modern manifesto“ (Lana) vs „I‘m a weirdo“ (Radiohead) - that’s so blatantly copied I almost can’t believe it. If she were a hobbyist, I might believe that her subconscious sneaked it all in without her noticing, but I don’t believe all the producers and test audiences this has been run by haven’t noticed.
- jnwatson 9y ago
  Yeah, I think there's more similarity than just the chord progression. Part of it is the vocal timbre. Lana Del Rey's relaxed, under-enunciated consonants is similar to the vocal style in grunge when Creep came out. But she does that in almost all her songs. The chorus is completely different, and so is the instrumentation and musical style. It is a close call whether I'd call that plagiarism.
  - shawndrost 9y ago
    The melody of the chorus is almost identical.
    - manmal 9y ago
      Or rather, Lana‘s verse is Radiohead‘s chorus.
intopieces 9y ago
Does the copyright infringement focus on the chord progression or the chord progression + melody? The melody being sung over the chords is a combination that seems subject to license.
larrymcp 9y ago
Listening to the Lana Del Rey & Radiohead tracks just now, I noticed that to my ear they also resemble yet another song, "The Impossible Dream". Similar chord progession and similar melody in some places. Where does it end, LOL...

ebbv 9y ago

Chord progressions aren’t copyright-able. So no, that obvious thing isn’t. What is subject to copyright is the melody. That’s what they got the claim on. The vocal melody.

golemotron 9y ago
And it's the same melody. It really is. Open and shut case.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  An open and shut case for the Hollies. How do Radiohead feature? If I copy a song, then lose an infringement suit to the original composer, can I really claim a subsequent infringement?
  - ebbv 9y ago
    Radiohead only gave up a tiny percentage of their rights on "Creep", so yeah they can still make claims on it.
jimnotgym 9y ago
Which as the article states is astonishingly similar to the Hollies song. Pick up a guitar and strum that progression in the rather obvious way that it appears on either record (like someone who is rather less than a virtuoso). Now add some words so the syllables fit with the strumming pattern...If you are not now singing that dreary melody you are a true musical genius.
shmageggy 9y ago
It probably didn't help that the drum groove is identical as well.

d13 9y ago

But of all the millions of random experiments you can make while a learning an instrument, only a few of them sound "nice" - and I would argue they sound nice because they sound like something you've already heard. There's a vast universe of truly original music waiting to be discovered - the future of music - for adventurous musician brave enough to embrace truly ugly sounds.

cousin_it 9y ago
That's not the future, that's the past. Check out atonal music, almost a century ago. Turns out no one wants to listen to it even after repeated exposure. The future of music is stuff that sounds good but not because you've already heard it. To create it you need a vivid musical imagination, not randomly messing around with an instrument. Read about Michael Jackson's creative process. He would imagine a song fully in his head and then sing each note of each part to his band: "here's the first chord, first note, second note, third note. Here's the second chord..."

sova 9y ago

Did the judge ever play guitar? I hear anyone can.

petre 9y ago
The judge doesn't need to play guitar. S/he could just summon in court an independent party that can play guitar and ask questions relevant to the case.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  I think the OP was making a joke. Radiohead had a contemporary song to Creep called 'Anyone can play guitar'
  - leejo 9y ago
    Not only that - they wrote at least two songs that referenced how much they hated "Creep" and how it had become a crutch. It's why I find it hard to believe that "Radiohead" are making the infringement claim here and it's much more likely the record label who own the rights to the recording who are making the claim.

mentos 9y ago

If I was a lawyer I'd strum those 4 open E chords on a guitar then play all three songs. The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe, Radiohead - Creep, Lana Del Rey - Get Free Then maybe I'd make some argument about anyone who made 3 left turns and a right turn to get to the court house today owes me a royalty for using my elegant route without my permission. If you want to get to the court house tomorrow you have to figure out any other permutation but mine.

thruflo22 9y ago
Reminds me of the four chords song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
- rrauenza 9y ago
  ...and the Pachebel Rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
wgj 9y ago
This is a pretty good demonstration on acoustic guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV8jYTfxJTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV8jYTfxJTI
QuadmasterXLII 9y ago
Add the Steven universe theme song to the list!

billsix 9y ago

> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. E major, G# major, A major, A minor The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. > Why should you get paid for the guitar equivalent of pressing all of the white notes on a piano? Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major Secondly, although Lana's infringement may have honestly been accidental, the progression and melody are extremely similar to Creep.

jimnotgym 9y ago
> The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I am suggesting that knowledge of musical theory had no part in this at all. You need to think in the terms of an indie guitarist of average ability like Thom Yorke. Open, the fret after the one with the dot on, the next fret with a dot, now take your little finger off. That is how I learnt to play Creep in the mid-ninetees! That is how (non-classical) guitarists tend to learn, and why so many people can play guitar. > Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major The equivalent, not the same as.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  > Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I'm probably not supposed to say this sort of thing here, but you're surely trolling.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    I think I may have got the tone wrong here, but it was more self deprecating than trolling. I am a competent guitarist, but know little musical theory. The same was true of many of my friends. The guitar is easy to start out on and impress some non-players with. You can get a very long way with a few chords and tab. However I would never claim to be a musician. I don't read music, I don't think in scales. I used to hang round with music students who marvelled at my solo improvisations, but I couldn't compete with them when it came to music theory. I learned the blues scale shape and added the interesting notes which my friends had proper names for..but it didn't stop me playing songs. Those who do learn music theory have my utmost respect, they could do harmonic things I can only marvel at, but I knew 20x more guitarists that just learned songs from the magazines (before the internet), song books and each other until they had enough building blocks to do their own thing

Joeboy 9y ago

With a few jazzy exceptions, you can play any pop/rock song by sliding an open E chord up and down the neck and sometimes taking a finger off. All you're saying there is that the song is constructed of major and minor chords, which I'd guess a comfortable 95% of pop/rock songs are (guitar-based or otherwise). Edit: Also you can write any computer program by simply pressing the buttons on a computer keyboard in the right order.

jimnotgym 9y ago
> Also you can write any computer program by simply pressing the buttons on a computer keyboard in the right order But you couldn't write many useful programs by simply typing the top row of the keyboard in ascending order and repeating for 3 minutes 59 > you can play any pop/rock song by sliding an open E chord up and down the neck and sometimes taking a finger off. Exactly, why do we allow them to copyright them? The point with 'Creep' is that they are physically close together and in a simple order. Its a great beginner song for someone learning barre chords
- Joeboy 9y ago
  My point is, you're negating any kind of craftsmanship by reducing it to the mechanical actions involved, which is basically equivalent to saying programming is just typing. I thought your comment was saying that Creep in particular is just a series of major and minor chords, not that songs in general are just series of major and minor chords. If the argument is that songs in general shouldn't be copyrightable then fair enough I guess.

hashkb 9y ago

What's really awesome is that when you become "good" at guitar you realize the mind melting shredding you hear is also super obvious. Your fingers just do it because you're on a guitar. All lawsuits involving guitar should be settled on stage. Every other instrument knows guitarists are cheaters.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bsaul 9y ago

a piece of music has four elements : harmony, melody, rythm and sound. you gave only one similarity, the truth is that the rythm and melody are also 100% identical, and one would argue the sound is pretty similar as well ( but it's more due to both songs being western rock/pop).

manmal 9y ago

(Fellow guitarist here) I agree, there are only so many chord progressions that work in a pop song.. perhaps 30 or even less? But the chords are not the only problem here. Listen to the voices‘ melodies of „my modern manifesto“ (Lana) vs „I‘m a weirdo“ (Radiohead) - that’s so blatantly copied I almost can’t believe it. If she were a hobbyist, I might believe that her subconscious sneaked it all in without her noticing, but I don’t believe all the producers and test audiences this has been run by haven’t noticed.

jnwatson 9y ago
Yeah, I think there's more similarity than just the chord progression. Part of it is the vocal timbre. Lana Del Rey's relaxed, under-enunciated consonants is similar to the vocal style in grunge when Creep came out. But she does that in almost all her songs. The chorus is completely different, and so is the instrumentation and musical style. It is a close call whether I'd call that plagiarism.
- shawndrost 9y ago
  The melody of the chorus is almost identical.
  - manmal 9y ago
    Or rather, Lana‘s verse is Radiohead‘s chorus.

intopieces 9y ago

Does the copyright infringement focus on the chord progression or the chord progression + melody? The melody being sung over the chords is a combination that seems subject to license.

larrymcp 9y ago

Listening to the Lana Del Rey & Radiohead tracks just now, I noticed that to my ear they also resemble yet another song, "The Impossible Dream". Similar chord progession and similar melody in some places. Where does it end, LOL...