wasw just listening to the new leona lewis song, Happy. Do you think Prince will get royalties as the verse seems to rip off of Nothing Compares to you?

"Anybody Seen My Baby?" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones featured on their 1997 album Bridges to Babylon.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the song also carries writing credits for K.D. Lang and Ben Mink.[1] The song is known for its chorus, which sounds strikingly similar to lang's 1992 hit song "Constant Craving". Jagger and Richards claimed to have never heard the song before and when they discovered the similarity prior to the song's release, were flummoxed as to how the songs could be so similar. Jagger then soon discovered his daughter listening to a recording of “Constant Craving” on her stereo and realized he had heard the song before many times but only subliminally. The two gave Lang credit, along with her co-writer Mink, as a formality for the song in order to avoid any possible lawsuits. Afterwards, Lang said she was "completely honored and flattered" by receiving the songwriting credit.

PS I just listened to the song. First, it's horrible. Second, I hear nothing remotely close in melody to "Nothing Compares 2 U".

There are only 8 notes, so something is bound to sound like something else at some point. Even Mick Jaggar knew that when to give a songwriting credit when something similar creeped in. Like this:


However, there's no similarity w/ "Nothing Compares 2 U", and whatever that other song is doing.

Another straight up similarity w/ a Prince song: Lenny Kravitz. We all know which one.

Another straight up similarity w/ a Prince song: Lenny Kravitz. We all know which one.

ernestsewell said:

which one?

PS I just listened to the song. First, it's horrible. Second, I hear nothing remotely close in melody to "Nothing Compares 2 U".

There are only 8 notes, so something is bound to sound like something else at some point. Even Mick Jaggar knew that when to give a songwriting credit when something similar creeped in. Like this:


However, there's no similarity w/ "Nothing Compares 2 U", and whatever that other song is doing.

Another straight up similarity w/ a Prince song: Lenny Kravitz. We all know which one.

CerpinTaxt said:

Lenny's song "Again" is a direct lift of Prince's "Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do". It was sometime in 1999 or 2000 that Prince dropped a note on the NPGMC site that said something to the effect of "Oh no he didn't!" I believe all this was after the Rave Un2 taping (just as a time frame). "Again" was on Lenny's Greatest Hits compilation. Prince never sued Lenny, or went after him in a bad way, but Prince did acknowledge that Lenny's song sounded VERY similar to his own from the Rave album. It's pretty clear when listening that Lenny either had a huge coincidence in his favor, or he heard Prince's album and flat out had that song in his head when he wrote "Again", as a new track for his GH compilation.

ernestsewell said:

Woah I had never thought to make that connection! But running through each melody in my head, they're dangerously similar. TBH, the melody to either song has always seemed like one of those melodies that HAS to have been used hundreds of times. Probably seemed like that to me b/c of the simple common chord progression. Either way, it's at least a huge coincidence.

I would say it is similar to Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" vs. "He's So Fine" but the fact that Lenny actually performed with Prince @ the Rave Un2 taping etc kind of throws that argument of "unknowingly lifting the melody" out the window. Whereas "He's So Fine" is one of those songs that practically everyone knows, even if they're not really aware of that song, "Wherever U Go" is a good track that closes out a pretty much mixed bag album that not many people have heard. I definitely think Lenny was blasting Rave Un2 around that time, for sure.