Ed Sheeran in court again for alleged plagiarism

Jfingers

Ed Sheeran lives about 40 minutes from me on a good run. I don't listen to him if it's not live and solo with a looper, and on the telly and Mrs J wants to (she's younger, bless her)

I've been aware of him long before he was rich from what he does.

The folk of Framlingham aren't very keen on what he's done there, but he has helped the locals much in the way that the Monarchy have, by bringing in tourist money to see the castle on the hill.

He did a 'surprise' solo gig outside Ipswich corn exchange quite recently, after buying one of his signature models from a nearby music shop. Afterwards he gave said guitar, signed, to a 12 year old boy in the crowd.

Suffolk like him a lot. He was very friendly in a Co Op with myself and my Daughter.

The East Anglian Daily Times can't seem to bring themselves to write about much else.

 

Supportact

roberty said:

I was told a story by someone who was acquainted with pulp in the 1980s. There was this song that was popular in Europe and bands used to bring copies of it back from tours as a sort of meme/souvenir/running gag



The similarities are painfully obvious to anyone from Spain apparently



This person basically thinks Common People was written in part as a kind of an in joke

I didn't know about this, very interesting. 

EricTheWeary

DB’s take, quite an interesting watch:

https://youtu.be/FcU0Rc5iXFg

jonnyburgo

As time goes on its looking more and more like he's plagiarising Donald Trump's Haircut

roberty

jonnyburgo said:

As time goes on its looking more and more like he's plagiarising Donald Trump's Haircut

Top of the populists

Pjon

Offset said:

ICBM said:

Offset said:

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

That one is a coincidence. It's been raised so many times by people who know that the Eagles toured with Tull, but easily disproved... Don Felder wrote the chord progression (the demo was called 'Mexican Reggae', because that's what it sounded like originally), but wasn't in the Eagles at the time - it was a couple of years before he joined.

Personally I don't even think it sounds that similar, and I'm a fan of both bands and have both albums. It's not even a particularly unusual chord progression and was quite likely used before either of them.

Fair points, but to my ear they resemble each other to a greater extent than some cases which have resulted in successful court cases.

I remember Ian Anderson pontificating about this at a gig, some time in the 90s. (I could have sworn he was making a joke about the songs being identical if one was played backwards, but it was a long time ago and my brain is getting old! ) I can see the same chord progression but can't hear an uncanny resemblance. Maybe I'm too familiar with both songs, if that's possible, so I asked a friend who doesn't know We Used To Know to listen to it while I was typing this and he thinks it sounds similar but also to a Wishbone Ash song of the same era.

What I do note is that Anderson loves bitching about any of his peers who were more successful. I read an article recently, promoting his new album, where he claimed he used to be ready and stocked up for a nuclear war and even kept weapons at hand. He comes across as such an odd man, often really unlikeable.

roberty

@Pjon he does, and that's why Tony Iommi says he left Jethro Tull. Tony seems like a nice man, particularly for someone who birthed the heavy metal genre

EricTheWeary

Pjon said:

Offset said:

ICBM said:

Offset said:

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

That one is a coincidence. It's been raised so many times by people who know that the Eagles toured with Tull, but easily disproved... Don Felder wrote the chord progression (the demo was called 'Mexican Reggae', because that's what it sounded like originally), but wasn't in the Eagles at the time - it was a couple of years before he joined.

Personally I don't even think it sounds that similar, and I'm a fan of both bands and have both albums. It's not even a particularly unusual chord progression and was quite likely used before either of them.

Fair points, but to my ear they resemble each other to a greater extent than some cases which have resulted in successful court cases.

I remember Ian Anderson pontificating about this at a gig, some time in the 90s. (I could have sworn he was making a joke about the songs being identical if one was played backwards, but it was a long time ago and my brain is getting old! ) I can see the same chord progression but can't hear an uncanny resemblance. Maybe I'm too familiar with both songs, if that's possible, so I asked a friend who doesn't know We Used To Know to listen to it while I was typing this and he thinks it sounds similar but also to a Wishbone Ash song of the same era.

What I do note is that Anderson loves bitching about any of his peers who were more successful. I read an article recently, promoting his new album, where he claimed he used to be ready and stocked up for a nuclear war and even kept weapons at hand. He comes across as such an odd man, often really unlikeable.

I watched a recent interview with him (Classic Album Review or whatever it’s called on YouTube) and he’s very much the grumpy gammon now. But based on the YouTube comments there’s a lot of cross over between Tull fans and being anti woke, Mail reading types (although I suspect they are mainly American). 

Rock musicians were inherently a bit rebellious, a bit liberal and it’s always disappointing when so many of them turn into what their younger selves would have hated. 

Apparently his voice is shot to ribbons now and Tull is basically him and whoever will put up with him. A law suit against The Eagles wouldn’t be a complete surprise, Anderson obviously feels aggrieved by modernity and that he is entitled to make things right for himself. 

Pjon

EricTheWeary said:

Apparently his voice is shot to ribbons now and Tull is basically him and whoever will put up with him. A law suit against The Eagles wouldn’t be a complete surprise, Anderson obviously feels aggrieved by modernity and that he is entitled to make things right for himself. 

His voice had gone by the last time I went to see Tull, and that must be over 20 years ago. I've listened to the new album and it's very uninspiring in any respect, never mind when compared to the back catalogue. I chatted with one of his previous bandmates years ago, and this person didn't have much time for IA, to put it mildly. 

I know it's a fairly minor thing, but his lack of respect for the name of the band seems to mirror his treatment of former bandmates. He claimed that the name was foisted on them and so they/he needed to show no loyalty to it. Presumably up to the point where his own name on albums didn't sell, so he needed to use the band name again...

I didn't know about the 'anti-woke' type of fans. Makes me sad. They were a brilliant band in their heyday.

Anyway, sorry, this is very OT!

Offset

Sheeran has said he'll exit the music business should he lose this case.  That might please some but not me, and I think it would be a disastrous outcome for songwriting.

He's a talented guy and just because I don't like his music doesn't mean I'd want to deprive others of it.

ICBM

Offset said:

Sheeran has said he'll exit the music business should he lose this case.  That might please some but not me, and I think it would be a disastrous outcome for songwriting.

He's a talented guy and just because I don't like his music doesn't mean I'd want to deprive others of it.

He's also an individual songwriter who made his own luck and is at least largely responsible for the bulk of his own work - whatever you may think of his 'borrowing' - as opposed to the hundreds of records churned out by identikit interchangeable teams of songwriter/producers who are basically a factory. I'm actually quite open to mainstream pop music, I listen to daytime radio and (really!) own the whole Now That's What I Call Music series, but probably half of all the tracks on the last couple of dozen Now albums share at least one songwriter in common, and all - much more so than what our parents said about our music - do really sound very similar.

DefaultM

I hope the jury are fans or they'll hear he's said that and say guilty no matter what.

Blueingreen

EricTheWeary said:

Pjon said:

Offset said:

ICBM said:

Offset said:

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

That one is a coincidence. It's been raised so many times by people who know that the Eagles toured with Tull, but easily disproved... Don Felder wrote the chord progression (the demo was called 'Mexican Reggae', because that's what it sounded like originally), but wasn't in the Eagles at the time - it was a couple of years before he joined.

Personally I don't even think it sounds that similar, and I'm a fan of both bands and have both albums. It's not even a particularly unusual chord progression and was quite likely used before either of them.

Fair points, but to my ear they resemble each other to a greater extent than some cases which have resulted in successful court cases.

I remember Ian Anderson pontificating about this at a gig, some time in the 90s. (I could have sworn he was making a joke about the songs being identical if one was played backwards, but it was a long time ago and my brain is getting old! ) I can see the same chord progression but can't hear an uncanny resemblance. Maybe I'm too familiar with both songs, if that's possible, so I asked a friend who doesn't know We Used To Know to listen to it while I was typing this and he thinks it sounds similar but also to a Wishbone Ash song of the same era.

What I do note is that Anderson loves bitching about any of his peers who were more successful. I read an article recently, promoting his new album, where he claimed he used to be ready and stocked up for a nuclear war and even kept weapons at hand. He comes across as such an odd man, often really unlikeable.

I watched a recent interview with him (Classic Album Review or whatever it’s called on YouTube) and he’s very much the grumpy gammon now. But based on the YouTube comments there’s a lot of cross over between Tull fans and being anti woke, Mail reading types (although I suspect they are mainly American). 

Rock musicians were inherently a bit rebellious, a bit liberal and it’s always disappointing when so many of them turn into what their younger selves would have hated. 

Apparently his voice is shot to ribbons now and Tull is basically him and whoever will put up with him. A law suit against The Eagles wouldn’t be a complete surprise, Anderson obviously feels aggrieved by modernity and that he is entitled to make things right for himself. 

I recall a story about Anderson that popped up on one of the bass forums. My recollection of the details is a bit fuzzy but the gist is clear enough. He was touring America but for some reason I’ve now forgotten wanted to hire a double bass locally. So they advertised for people in the various cities on the tour willing to help out. One of the guys on the form heard about this and as a Tull fan offered him an instrument at what was a very modest charge…usd15 or something like that, just to cover his costs…and to his absolute astonishment Anderson, presumably a multi multi millionaire, haggled about the price.

Offset

Blueingreen said:

I recall a story about Anderson that popped up on one of the bass forums. My recollection of the details is a bit fuzzy but the gist is clear enough. He was touring America but for some reason I’ve now forgotten wanted to hire a double bass locally. So they advertised for people in the various cities on the tour willing to help out. One of the guys on the form heard about this and as a Tull fan offered him an instrument at what was a very modest charge…usd15 or something like that, just to cover his costs…and to his absolute astonishment Anderson, presumably a multi multi millionaire, haggled about the price.

I think what you're saying in a very tactful way is that he's a bit of a twat.

darthed1981

Offset said:

Sheeran has said he'll exit the music business should he lose this case.  That might please some but not me, and I think it would be a disastrous outcome for songwriting.

He's a talented guy and just because I don't like his music doesn't mean I'd want to deprive others of it.

It will actively kill songwriting.

If this case is lost, it will not be commercially worth releasing original music any more (it barely is anyway for people who aren't Sheeran, TayTay or Katy Perry), some ass somewhere will have done something similar enough to take all your money.

darthed1981

EricTheWeary said:

DB’s take, quite an interesting watch:

https://youtu.be/FcU0Rc5iXFg

Spot.Fucking.On.

beed84

Sheeran could be doing without this hassle if he based his pop music around diminished chords and super locrian melodies.

roberty

beed84 said:

Sheeran could be doing without this hassle if he based his pop music around diminished chords and super locrian melodies.

You are Django Reinhardt and I claim my five pounds

Yorkie

Not liable. Until next time?

Vintage65

Vintage65 said:

It was quite obvious from this video I posted, and I would blame the producer for any misunderstanding.