15 Mar
2006
15 Mar
'06
4:25 p.m.
Quoting james(a)dis-dot-dat.net:
On Wed, 15 Mar, 2006 at 08:30PM +0200, Juhana
Sadeharju spake thus:
Isn't this how Robbie Williams got popular? Seriously. I try hard to avoid chart
music and his in particular (and lately I seem to be succeeding), but what I
have heard of his always sounds rather more than half familiar and it annoys me
that I can never put my finger on what the original was -- it's enough to
_almost_ make me wish I had an encyclopaedic knowledge of chart music and a
musicology degree so that I could wipe that smug grin off his face...
Of course, he has already been successfully sued once for plagiarism -- although
he got away with not having to hand over all the income from the song to the
original copyright holders because, according to the Judge, his song had no
particular "staying power"! Ha ha!
I suppose this just goes to show that it's a very fine line between clever and
stupid, or between imitating and plagiarising.
I have this idea:
We could have an organized community where volunteer musicians
make music similar to the top commercial songs. When the idea
works, one may get top pop music for free.
On a completely unrelated note, things "sucking" is one of my
favourite Americanisms. Why is sucking bad? I can think of many
contexts in which suction is important, useful and even, dare I say
it, pleasurable :)
James
And then there are those things that are so bad they deserve the obligatory
Simpsons quote: "I never thought it was physically possible, but this both
sucks AND blows!" Digeridoo perhaps? Or anything else where cyclical breathing
is a benefit.