Red Mosquito

Kevin Davis wrote:I didn't say there was no similarity; I said there's not much similarity, which I maintain that there isn't. I don't hear it in the instrumental parts at all, which is why I agree with evenslow that Mike is talking out of his hole when he says there are "some influences he may have stolen"; if you can (or care enough to) point me to specific points in the song where you're hearing this, I will listen, but from years of memory I don't agree with you. There are some similarities in the vocal melody, sure, but they're simple similarities that I think could very easily have been stumbled upon independently, and certainly don't constitute the degree of "ripoff" that people imply when they comment on the two songs. I think, in all kinds of music, there are constantly fragments of melody, arrangements of chords, etc. that reoccur in varying degrees of frequency, and most of the time they're parts of the musical language that just make sense for artists, as composers, to repeat--instinctively, the brain just goes to sequences of notes that are logically pleasing to people who were raised on music with Western sensibilities. It's true that Led Zeppelin were probably responsible for shaping the members' of Pearl Jam's understanding of these sensibilities, so I think it's reasonable to view Pearl Jam's music as a logical descendent of Zep's, maybe sometimes in a sense that's as literal (i.e. specific note patterns) as it is aesthetic or ideological ("Zeppelin were a huge influence on us, man!"), but I think it ends there. I will buy that "Given to Fly" is a lineal descendent of Zeppelin ballads. I don't think it's a flat-out ripoff of the song. At least in popular music, I think flat-out ripoffs of other people's material, in the sense that someone is trying to pilfer someone else's material and pass it off as their own sans credit for their own profit, are extremely rare.

And I always felt like the thing at the show with Robert Plant was a joke--the band slyly acknowledging the well-known "controversy" surrounding the two songs, and consequently displaying how serious of a matter it was to them.

Kevin Davis wrote:

harmless wrote:Let me put this another way: Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Yawn. Why? They've been derivative and uninspired for a very long time. Do I not deserve this opinion because every new creation is valid, just because it's new, even if it's as bland as hell? I know a poet who thinks this way (said poet's opinion is 'Every poem is an experiment') and it's just plain not right, imo. Some poems are middle-of-the-road, bland and experiment with nothing at all. And so with songs.

Absolutely. I'm not trying to give a free pass to inherently dull music; I'm only saying that if the same musical idea works for multiple songs (to create not dull music), I don't think the fact that it has been used once necessarily should bar it from being used again. I agree with you about the Chili Peppers, who are definitely in a kind of comfort zone where everything sort of mixes the same ingredients and gives off the same general vibe, but if the net worth of that vibe is "blandness," I would be hesitant to blame that exclusively on their repeating themselves, because I listen to too many artists who've repeated themselves for their entire careers and never made a dull record. I would also differentiate that from the kind of "derivation" being discussed here.

But ultimately you're right: Yes, it's perfectly valid for an individual listener to be put off by something because to them it too closely resembles something else. I understand that, and certainly won't claim to be above it 100% of the time. Unfortunately most people are incapable of stating this position without sounding like a school hall monitor issuing a citation to someone for cruising the establishment's corridors without a bathroom pass, and I maintain that in more cases than not it reflects a self-satisfied smugness that's more irritating than the observation is enlightening.

dimejinky99 wrote:Where did September come from? That'd be ideal.

Got Some wrote:It's a few weeks away from being completed according to stone

broken iris wrote:

Got Some wrote:It's a few weeks away from being completed according to stone

If only his opinion mattered.

Birds in Hell wrote:Since Matt's on tour with Soundgarden right now, I'd imagine they're done with the actual recording. I still think a September release is very possible.

dprival78 wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:Since Matt's on tour with Soundgarden right now, I'd imagine they're done with the actual recording. I still think a September release is very possible.

if they're done recording, then all that's left to do is the fixin'.

WtOB? wrote:If it was going to be released in September, they'd be announcing the release date pretty damn soon. I can't see it happening.

mray10 wrote:

WtOB? wrote:If it was going to be released in September, they'd be announcing the release date pretty damn soon. I can't see it happening.

Pretty sure Backspacer's September release wasn't announced until July of that year.

evenslow wrote:

mray10 wrote:

WtOB? wrote:If it was going to be released in September, they'd be announcing the release date pretty damn soon. I can't see it happening.

Pretty sure Backspacer's September release wasn't announced until July of that year.

we need more of this columbo type shit around here.

dprival78 wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:Since Matt's on tour with Soundgarden right now, I'd imagine they're done with the actual recording. I still think a September release is very possible.

if they're done recording, then all that's left to do is the fixin'.