Tags for this video have been changed from 'circle of fifths, very clever' to 'circle of fifths, chords, piano, pop, chord progression, vocal, similarity' - edited by Eklek

Of course...because only top 40 does this.

Honestly, I'm not at all sure that even the songs they used in the video actually used that chord progression in the originals. It's rather hard to tell, given the awful vocals. Just because the chord progression doesn't clash with the melody, doesn't mean the work is a duplicate or a ripoff...hell, it doesn't even mean the progression is a part of the song. That would be like saying that any building that could be built with bricks is a duplicate/ripoff of all the others that could be built that way, regardless of whether or not they actually are.

They stole the chord progression from Chumbawamba in the song Ladies for Compassionate Lynching off the album WYSIWYG

This is modal, but it's dorian, not phrygian. Hate to demystify this, but it's just a combination of the oft-used chord progression from Jimi Hendrix's Along the Watchtower with some noodling in a pentatonic gamalon scale (1,3,4,5,7). McCreary does a nice job with this show, but most of the iconic themes (The main title, the tribal drumming, the pulsing synth cylon theme, etc.) were actually created by composer Richard Gibbs in the mini-series. Bear mainly added the ethnic Irish, (LOTR/Titanic sounding stuff )and middle eastern (Hanz Zimmery dudek and vocal stuff) stuff, as well as riffing off the miniseries material.

Lets look at what Satriani claims that Coldplay has plagiarized.

The chords: The chords are mostly the same, but the last chord is different. The chord progression is also a very logical and common one and I think you can find many songs with similar chords.

The melody: The melody follows the well established musical principle of guide tones which is a logical melody to apply to the chords. The only similaritys are in the first short phrase, the rest can be atributed to guide tones. Furthermore, Satrianis phrasing is very different and ends up sounding very different. The first song that came to my mind when I heard Viva La Vida was this song which is much better match than Satriani's:



As for Chuck Berry vs. Beach Boys, the whole song was almost exactly the same in terms of melody and chords. Satriani's claim is based on only one phrase of a melody and some random chords...

The same chord progressions? Well, whoever first wrote 12 bar blues has a huge sum coming to them then.

It's pretty obvious Coldplay borrowed the tune from Satch. Whether he could sue for it, I doubt it.

I thought there had already been a case ruling that similar (or even identical) chord progressions didn't constitute plagiarism. That's why we have videos talking about how every song sounds the same and using a single chord progression to play a dozen different songs as proof. Now, if they had ripped off one of the many solos Satch does, that would certainly constitute plagiarism, but I think they can actually argue "inspiration" as a defense.

Who woulda thought that by writing pedestrian crappy pop music you'd somehow run into similar sounding chord progressions?

By reading your comments about how good Alanis looks and how lame the chord progression is, etc., I can tell that you guys have no idea what this video is about.

Gosh! I'm feeling really disdainful tonight.

>> ^JAPR:
OH GOD LED ZEPPELIN USED A VERY SIMILAR CHORD PROGRESSION WITH A VERY SIMILAR FINGER-PICKING PATTERN LET'S GET THEM!!!
Anyway, this video failed to impress me at all.


Like I said: Only the really hardcore fans.

OH GOD LED ZEPPELIN USED A VERY SIMILAR CHORD PROGRESSION WITH A VERY SIMILAR FINGER-PICKING PATTERN LET'S GET THEM!!!

Anyway, this video failed to impress me at all.

upvote for the glorious A-Bm-D chord progression, and the funny hat

and a perfect example of why i like Saint-Saens so much.

music is essentially math, but with some composers, like Bach, the math seems to take over, for me.
you start being able to guess where the composer is going, based on the chord progression that preceded it.
but Saint-Saens always surprised me. always movements and changes i didn't anticipate.

Yeah. I totally agree. Though I've known composers who don't play instruments well, and I know he has friends/significant others who usually back him on records.


In reply to this comment by JAPR:
I'm not sure why he doesn't get a band to play with him when he tours, but then again there's something charming about him playing the songs solo acoustic. You have to think that the other music you hear in the recorded versions is stuff he wrote, so he really is a decent guitarist, but you can't really play any sort of lead line while singing without a chord progression to back you up. He does have an absolutely great voice though, that's for sure.

In reply to this comment by oxdottir:
The streaming was jumpy for me, in a way youtube is not. That is, it's midnight here, and I can watch even that HD youtube flash without pause now. But I can't watch this video without it just stopping dead for a sec or so every now and then.

I don't think I've ever seen Jonathan Coulton sing without other instruments backing him before. I hadn't noticed...well, the nice way to put it is I hadn't noticed how much better his singing is than his guitar.

I don't really have a vast exposure to shoegaze, though I like Asobi Seksu and Ides of Space. Most of the shoegaze I've heard has bored me due to the melodies being almost impossible to hear and the vocals being totally buried. If you drown out everything that makes a song interesting with the chord progression, that's really all you end up with lol. I've never heard of those other groups you mentioned, but I haven't really checked out Europe's music scene. I mainly listen to American and Japanese rock/indies.

Oh, that song you linked was quite good, btw.

In reply to this comment by charlatantric:
Yeah, I don't get all that much out of Loveless either. And yeah, I'd mark Citrus as the best shoegaze album of all time, too. If you're into the poppier side of shoegaze, I hope you're also into bands like The Radio Dept, Mixtapes and Cellmates, etc. Basically everything out of Sweden. I'm gonna guess you haven't heard this song, but it'll crush you (crank it up high):

http://www.charlatantric.com/media/The%20Bridal%20Shop%20-%20Spectrum%20of%20Clarity.mp3