The "Influence or Coincidence, Inspiration or Plagiarism" Thread

That really does sound like plagiarism! Dream Theater would also take it further with the soft intro and verses (especially that guitar melody) in this epic sounding like that Metallica track:

But for Dream Theater, it's more of an influence than plagiarism, and it also coincidentally resembles the verse riff of this Michael Jackson song:

Here's another example of Metallica pushing the plagiarism boundaries. Check out the part at 3:33 in "Seek & Destroy" from 1983 & compare it with the section at 1:48 in Saxon's classic "Princess Of The Night".

Staying with Metallica but moving further into their career, check the riff at 0:42 in "The End Of The Line" from their 2008 "Death Magnetic" album & compare it to the main riff in Pearl Jam's "Why Go" from their 1991 debut album "Ten".

I'd suggest that this is another example of plagiarism personally.

Here's another example of Metallica pushing the boundaries into plagiarism. Check out he repeated lead guitar motif that starts at 5:42 of Black Sabbath's "Fairies Wear Boots" & compare it to the one that comes in at 1:17 of Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls" & see what you think.

I was wondering why the outro of "Fairies Wear Boots" sounded familiar. Metallica certainly made it sound more metal when pushing the plagiarism bounds.

Here's a quite infamous one. From Dimmu Borgir's famous Stormblast album comes Sorgens Hammer, a 1-to-1 copy of the theme to the Amiga game Agony. This is so blatant that errors that were accidentally left in the released song were included in Dimmu Borgir's version. (The plagarist, Stian Aarstad, was quite controversial in general, and probably ripped off other tunes)

The fixed version:

(TBH, it's worth listening to the complete soundtrack to the game, it's very nice)

While I don't really listen to Dimmu Borgir, I have heard of that Stormblast controversy. "Sorgens Kammer" is not even a cover of the Agony theme, it's a straight-up copy! And that wasn't the only case of plagiarism on that album... Listen to the one and a half minute intro of the album's opening track:

Some people might think "Hey, that sounds identical to the intro of that Magnum song", and that's because it is:

Stian Aarstad performed the intro for that song note-by-note and never told Magnum about this, let alone asked them for permission. For the Dimmu Borgir album's 2005 re-recorded version, Stormblast MMV, that intro was left out, along with "Sorgens Kammer". Two new songs were add to the re-recording, one of them with the title "Sorgens Kammer - Del II". Also, at 0:40 in Magnum's intro, there's a beautiful piano melody that reminds of that in the outro of this Iced Earth epic (8:15), though much more of an influence than just plagiarism:

While I still have a couple songs from Iced Earth's Night of the Stormrider in my mind, I know the intro to the album's opening track is based on O Fortuna:

But its epic orchestral synth vibe makes me think of the intro to the opening track of Kamelot's debut. Similar aspect and influence, different notes:

Celtic Frost mastermind Thomas Gabriel Warrior didn't seem to mind much that he'd basically ripped off Megadeth's "In My Darkest Hour" from 1988 when he released this track from 1990's "Vanity/Nemesis" album:

I've often seen people referring to Judas Priest's opening track from their 1978 "Stained Class" album as the root of the speed metal sound however I would argue that Priest borrowed its double-kick & tremolo-picking techniques from the title-track from Deep Purple's 1971 "Fireball" album. See what you think.

Check out the opening riff from David Bowie's 1971 track "Andy Warhol" & compare it to the riff at 6:20 in Metallica's "Master of Puppets". This is not coincidental & is entirely Cliff Burton's doing.

I found this one quite by accident, having randomly decided to listen to SMG today, finding the chorus of this song:

...And noticed a similarity with a Metallica song.

The question is, intentional reference or plagarism?

Hard to say really. It's certainly similar though. I'm gonna so intentional.

How about this one, coincidence or plagiarism? Or judging by what one of my friends said when I showed them this, non-existent?

The pianos on this...

...and the flute/fiddle on this? It's a somewhat deep cut, but it wouldn't be unreasonable for Toumas to listen to darkwave.

Those two songs can actually make a good mashup! It's most likely just a coincidence, since I don't think Tuomas has ever mentioned Ego Likeness or darkwave as an influence, though Nightwish has gotten their darker influences from bands of death/doom/gothic metal such as, quoted from Wikipedia, "Children of Bodom, Theatre of Tragedy, The Gathering, My Dying Bride, Tiamat and The 3rd and the Mortal."

Yeah, I’m going with coincidence on that one.

Check the slow section in the middle of Metallica's "The Four Horsemen" & compare it to the main riff in Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama". It's definitely not a coincidence in this case. Apparently Dave Mustaine got bored while rehearsing the song & suggested that they should cover "Sweet Home Alabama" instead. Once they started mucking around with it Lars suggested that they incorporate some of it into the middle of "The Mechanics" (which later became "The Four Horsemen") as they were looking to place a slower section in the middle to break it up a bit. The rest is history.

This one's probably a coincidence, because Europeans were more Amiga kids, but this masterpiece (D'pahk if the link doesn't work right) from the Ironseed soundtrack:

And Ayreon - Comatose:

Definitely another coincidence.

This one is clearly plagiarism. Check out how badly Metallica ripped off Iron Maiden here with the introductions to both songs being pretty much identical:

Melbourne band Ash seem to have had a very strong taste for Black Sabbath, so much so that they completely ripped off one of the riffs from "War Pigs" less than twelve months after it's release on this early stoner metal tune. Check out the verse riff from the Ash track that first comes in at 0:13 & compare it to the riff 2:38 at in "War Pigs".

Here's one I picked up while revisiting Malevolent Creation's "The Ten Commandments" debut album this week. Check out the verse section that starts in Deicide's "Sacrificial Suicide" at 0:30 & compare it with the part that begins at 1:31 in Malevolent Creation's "Injected Suffering" which was surely influenced by the self-titled Deicide album. The riffs aren't identical but the structure & vocal phrasing has clearly borrowed from Deicide in my opinion.

Here's another one I picked up while listening to Malevolent Creation's "The Ten Commandments" earlier in the week. Check out the riff that starts at 0:20 in their 1991 track "Premature Burial" & compare it to the riff that starts at 0:58 in Suffocation's "Human Waste" which was released just four months earlier. Coincidence? I think not.

Check out Iron Maiden ripping off the bass line that appears at 5:18 in Budgie's " You're the Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk" at 3:22 in their 1980 classic "Phantom of the Opera". We know that Steve Harris was a Budgie fan so it would seem to be a pretty clear example of plagiarism.