eg. George clinton's 'Knee Deep' on 'Jungle Love'.
Also, the riff from 'Peach' is an old blue thing.
And, 'Sexy MF' sounds like a bunch of James Brown songs.
'Kiss' uses hooks from 'Papa's got a brand new bag'
'Sign of the times' has the same riff as 'Whole lotta love'
'Alphabet St.' and 'ICNTTPOYM' have the same refrain as 'She loves you' (The Beatles).
'Adore' rips off 'You are so beautiful' by Joe Cocker
'Get Off' samples 'Mother Popcorn'
'7' sounds like 'Gangsters of the groove' by Heatwave
'Delirious' is an old motown parody
'Love Sign', 'Scarlet Pussy' and 'La La Hee' all rip-off Atomic Dog' (George Clinton).
'Shake' sounds like both 'Wooly Bully' and '96 tears'

Anyone else??

Stealing and paying homage are two totally different things.

This subject is so tired. You could do this same thing with literally every artist who ever recorded anything, including the ones you listed that Prince "stole" from.

Maybe. But, I don't think anyone has stole as much as Prince. Or as blatantly.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Actually, come to think of it the into of 'Little Red Corvette' is the same as 'Bette Davis Eyes'!!

music is recycled

Very few artists conciously rip-off
But I think it's a good quality
As the saying goes "Talent borrows, genius steals'

Speaking of 'Housequake' that steals more James Brown songs including 'Sex Machine'

gainsbourg said:

Gainsbourg - it isn't the same riff. The two original recordings of the songs are in the different keys - but if you transcribe them to the same key, the notes would not only be different musically, but they would also have different time values. The SOTT 'riff' is actually more varied than WLL. I can see/hear the similarity, coupled with the fact that they fall in the same (end) part of each bar. Then again, the WLL riff runs into the next bar whereas in SOTT each bass clef bar starts off with a rest.

Shorty said:

Very much agreed.

gainsbourg said:

Dot Parker is Family Affair by Sly Stone and Co.

gainsbourg said:

Great detailed example.


See above.


You know...it really DOES!!!


Reaching.








And...


Try the sample from Otis Redding's "Tramp"...








There are plenty more, but your examples were so descriptive...

he didn't STEAL he just BORROWED...

Is Prince doing an Elvis impersonation on Computer Blue?
"Where is my love life? Where can it be? (right here)--> "THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE MACHINERY"...is that Elvis or what?

LouieLaFunk said:

no, he does Elvis on Delerious

gainsbourg said:

You've never heard of Led Zeppelin... built up their catalog by stealing from old obscure blues records.

gainsbourg said:

rdhull said:

is not! sorta similar, but not the same...

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Those handclaps though Handclaps lol...hmmm. All the boys thinks she's a spy

Stealing is what went down when so many James, P-funk, & Prince samples were blatantly used - without permission - to earn other's hit songs.

rdhull said:

not quite, imo...

she's got...bette davis eyesss...

langebleu said:

Whoa! See tha's what I'm talkin bout. A real music-based explanation.

Steal.. I rather say inspirated by other tunes, wuz up with that?! I guess most of the artist gets inspirated by someone they like..
You can hear in his guitar that he´s inspired of Santana, Hendrix etc, he´s funk is very James Brown inspirated etc etc.
Steal?! You mean to sample something!? That´s still a different thing. To sample a rythm of somebody and make it to your own could maybe be calling to steal something, but then I can´t remember he sampled some song straight off, did he?

NikkiDarling said:

AMEN! but gotta give him props for soundin so damn good though.

gainsbourg said:

Well he ripped off Thin Lizzy for the remix of Letitgo. And didn't even credit them in the liner notes. If it was the other way around and someone sampled Prince like that, he'd have Londell McMillan on them like flies on shit. The fact that he didnt even credit them gives me the impression that he never payed them any royalties either.
[This message was edited Fri Mar 21 17:20:04 PST 2003 by Tom]

stymie said:

Yeah but Prince doesn't call it "paying homage" when a fan puts up a Prince appreciation site, then gets slapped with a lawsuit.

Tom said:

booyaa... :blows smoke of gun barrell:

See. Most of you missed all of the obvious influences on Prince's songs.

The Beatles and or Michael Jackson owe Litle Richard and Ray Charles half of their estates and awards.
I mention Michael because he owns The Beatles Catalog.

Where'd you think those adlibs of "Tell me what I say", and "Wooo"came from? The Beattles milked those 2 until they were sick of it. What about "Shout" from The Isley Brothers? They went "hippie" when the 'Stones and The Doors premiered.

The Beattles really seemed to "come into their own" when they were "challenged" to change or fade.

What about Oasis? Are they going into The Rock N'Roll Hall of Fame? Should they go? It seems that when they were mocked as "Beattle clones", The Gallager Brothers turned on each other. I do like some of what I've heard from them though.

What about Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix? I have no problem with Stevie because he definitely respected Bo Diddly, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Hendrix.

George Clinton was a struggling leader of a "Doo wop" group, before he hired most of James Browns' players.

Maceo, Bootsy, and others.

Prince at least took care of George. No matter what "hold" you folks believe that Larry Graham has on Prince, George Clinton seems to always appear at Prince's most important functions.

James Brown refused several songs and whatever else from Prince.

Prince will never slam James. James is his "Godfather".
He never scoffed at anything James released publically like ?uestlove did his work. He will never mock James in public or the press. James was really struggling at the end of the 80's during Prince's commercial peak. James and Full Force even hinted his influence of Prince, Michael, and Terrance Trent D'Arby when he sings, "Steal my voice and my style, and you think you're God" on "I'm Real". Again. Not a negative word from Prince.

I really believe that Prince's dream was to be in James Brown's band.

Prince is the keeper of the Funk of the Forefathers. His songs's not the exactly the same to others, so they are not out-right samples.
[This message was edited Sun Mar 23 19:49:04 PST 2003 by NGSPW7200]

Prince is damn clever though.
I've heard so many things "lifted" from obscure 70's/80's rock tunes.

It's like literature. If an author is well read, (s)he will reflect the literary influences that shaped his/her writing.

In fact, much of literature is actually a call and response with other pieces. One writer spurred on by another one, responding to it, signifying on it in some way.

Music. American music. American popular music. Black music (which are all the same thing) is steeped in the tradition of signifying. What do you think the jazz idiom is doing? It takes a phrase, signifies on it (kinda like acknowledging, a nod) and then remakes it, flip reverse it whatever.

Prince is no different than other artists in this regard. Of course you can hear influences in his music. He's in conversation with those pieces. If he wrote in a total vacuum he wouldn't be able to reach us because it would be too isolated from us, the musical language would be too foreign. So he speaks the language of the people, and will take phrase, twist, reverse it, flip it, bend it, pitch up, batter down, speed it up, slow it down, interpolate it, improvise it, harmonize it, solo it... whatever to give us something NEW.

Writers use words that have been used before... they just combine them in different refreshing ways. Musicians are not different.

NuPwrSoul said:

exactly. imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. happens all over the art realm...