Sound-alike songs from the '80s

It's not unusual to find songs that sound familiar to previous tunes, but Stuck in the '80s correspondent and technical guru David Peterkofsky has gone one step further and created this video that highlights "sound-alike" hit songs from the '80s:

80s Songs That Sound Like Other Songs from David on Vimeo.

What do you think? Some are a little fishier than others!

Comments

[elen]

some basic mixing
http://www.ihappyshopping.com/
http://www.laptopspartstore.com/
never stop

[Mary]

I sing these two to my husband all the time: Madonna's "Holiday" and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." You could play them together perfectly.

[DC]

I tried guessing what the "copy" song was gonna be. I actually thought "wild weekend" sounded more like the beginning of "I think we're alone now" by Tommy James & the Shondells and later Tiffany. Great stuff! I will never hear Footloose quite the same again.

[Wampa1]

I sat here and laughed at most of these. I knew the GB and Huey Lewis story. With Kenny Logins I thought it was gonna be Kenny Logins. It seems like every one of his songs are the same.

The only one I thought you missed was Queen and Bowie's Under Pressure and Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby.

[Mark in East Texas]

Great job on the vid! I'm proud to say I've never heard that Bonnie tyler tune until today. And may I never hear it again...

[Synthetic Girl, Moscow, Russia]

Hello from the other end of the world!

Here in Russia one of the biggest radio stations has a silly annual award called "The Silver Shoe". They say its an award for the most doubtful show-biz acheivements of the year.
So one of the prizes is given for the Russian song of the year that sounds mostly like some other song, local or foreign. Some songs are total copies of international hits, sometimes popular 80's songs... A really sad fact, because most of the times the contemporary variant is not even worth listening — the cheapest pop music ever. The authors seem to be just out of fantasy, so they hope to make a hit based on something familiar.

David's video is great and even funny at times, thanks a lot! Even though some of the songs are greatly similar to each other, each of them is a real hit.

Take care,
Natacha

[Benji]

I can't believe the comparison of Killing Joke's "Eighties" and Nirvana's "Come As You Are" wasn't shown. I believe Killing Joke won the lawsuit.

Killing Joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1oyfG6t2ew

Nirvana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOL5cpwTkes

[Rick]

David did an amazing job of researching these songs and putting
it together, but the match I thought surely would be there is
John Waite's "Missing You" coming after The Police's "Every Breath You Take."

[billyshakes]

Does anyone else think the guy on the left in America looks like James Spader? He has that patented smirk. So would that mean America got doubly ripped off in the 80s?

[Milbarge]

Also funny to see John Fogerty in here, since he was once sued for plagiarizing one of his own songs!

[Rob Bass from Chicago]

Wow...I love Joe Jackson and love to play his tunes on my piano...but HOW THE HECK did he get away with that? It is the exact melody...

Either way, I like Jackson's version better, even if he did steal it note-by-note.

[Kevy Metal]

At first I thought the Kenny Loggins-James Gang comparison was quite thin, but after another listen I discovered the connection is all in the guitar riff. And that guitar riff is the backbone of each song. I'm not buying the Queen-Chic juxtaposition though, merely coincidence. Same goes for the Bar-Kays.

Excellent work! This was an ear opener.

[Clark]

Nice job, although I'm not sure I see the Bar Kays inclusion. With "artists" just taking tracks and writing new lyrics over them (looking at you Kid Rock, Puff Diddy, et al), this video would be hours long if Dave did it for this decade.

A burning question; how did Janet Jackson ever get in and out of her apartment with her key hanging on her earring like that?

[Marissa]

Nice.

[Spiky Sandy]

Great stuff! I had to post it in a Myspace bulletin because I have 80's friends that would so appreciate it! Thanks!!

[Alyfox/Dan Vhay]

Okay, here's the skinny on GHOSTBUSTERS, all of it from an anniversary interview from Premiere Magazine: While editing the movie, the filmmakers of GB actually used "I Want a New Drug" in all the places they were going to use a theme song, because they LOVED the song.
They then went to Huey & News and asked if they wanted to write the GB theme song, and Lewis & CO. politely declined.
The filmmakers then asked Ray Parker Jr. to write it, and gave him the movie footage WITH "I WANT A NEW DRUG" STILL ON THE TEMP TRACK!
Is anyone surprised that the 2 songs sound alike, or that Huey won the lawsuit for plagarism?
It pains me to write this, as I think GB is the funniest movie of all time, and Huey is my favorite artist of the 80's/all time, and I loved the GB theme.
Sad, but true.

[Miguel]

The Joe Jackson/Badfinger and the Janet Jackson/America ones are very clear.In some others David stretches a lot.But ending with the Bonnie Tyler/Bon Jovi one is excellent.

[Roy, UK]

I can't really see the Ghostbusters link or the Queen one either, apart from a similar bass line

Given how many songs these days sample classic songs (i'm looking directly at Sean Kingston's 'Beautiful Girls' and Rihanna's 'SOS' here) i can't really see the problem. At least the vid didn't raise the 1999/Sussudio issue again!

[Melissa]

Very interesting. I agree with Bassnote, I had to laugh out loud with the Bonnie Tyler/Bon Jovi comparison. I just pictured Bon Jovi singing the Bonnie Tyler song...

[Bassnote]

The "Footloose" and James Gang one was a bit of a stretch. The Bon Jovi/Bonnie Tyler one made me laugh out loud. Nice work by Mr. Peterkofsky.

[Jeff in Cuba]

I noticed the Badfinger connection as soon as Joe Jackson released "Breakin Us In Two", but some of the other ones were surprises. Especially the "Rockin Rebels" (who look about as rebellious as a Divinity School Student Council.)

And I always thought the only thing Bonnie Tyler ever lifted from Bon Jovi was a hairstyle!