SELL-OUT! - July 15, 2007 -

* Sell-out = music for commercials, becoming mainstream pop when you actually were a proper rock band, having a Britney Spears dance routine in your latest music video, when you originally claim to be “the anti-Britney” at the start of your career (and don’t even get me started on that whole Sid Vicious comparison-quote!). Unless you’re Mick Jones who has a really nice view of what constitutes a sell-out :P.

I don’t know why this whole week seems to be a major band-dissing week for me. And normally, I won’t be bothered to write something like this, but maybe it’s coz I got In Utero (Nirvana) and Jimi Hendrix this year, and the other day, I was at a store wandering about when this song came on the radio (classic hits station), and I went “hey, isn’t that the riff from Fell In Love With A Girl, by the White Stripes?!”

Here is the White Stripes’ Fell In Love With A Girl - hook is at 00:52mins.

Here are Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Dani California, which sounds a little TOO similar, to the original by Tom Petty.

Here’s Mary Jane’s Last Dance, by Tom Petty. At 3:49mins and 7:48min, the riff is exactly the same as with the White Stripe’s song (except that the WS version is a lot faster and it’s more of a tune than riff, but you can hear the Joss Stone cover, which has the riff, right at the start and at 00:39mins).

Now of course bands copy and steal from other musicians, and so do many writers, artists, etc. But there *is* a difference with copying and being influenced, and there’s only one original!

Tom Petty, The Who, The Clash, The Ramones…damn, I’ve a lot of catching up to do.