SoulAlive said:

lezama said:

Speaking of Nona, she hasn't done anything in a minute... no acting or nothing. Guess the Pharrell payday will come in handy.

She's never done anything significant She had a debut album that flopped,then worked with Prince on some stuff,but I don't think she ever came back with another album.

I don't know what that has to do with the lawsuit but here's an FYI...

You're welcome.

Filmography

• Harlem Nights (1989)
• Ali (2001)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• The Polar Express (2004)
• xXx: State of the Union (2005)
• Crash (2005)
• The Gospel (2005)
• Blood and Bone (2009)

Video games

• The Polar Express (2004)
• The Matrix Online (2005)
• The Matrix: Path of Neo (archive footage only) (2005)

Awards/nominations

• Black Reel Awards
  • 2006, Best Actress: The Gospel (Nominated)
  • 2002, Best Supporting Actress: Ali (Winner)

• Image Awards
  • 2004, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: The Matrix Revolutions (Nominated)

Discography

Albums

• Love for the Future (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• Language of Love (AmieStreet.com, 2008)

Singles

• "I'm Overjoyed" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• "The Things That We All Do for Love" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1993)
• "Love Sign" (duet with Prince) (NPG, 1994)

MickyDolenz said:

How does copyright work on house, rave, and techno songs? A lot of them sound alike to me. So do some old blues songs, tejano, salsa, new jack swing, etc. Some Motown & Stax songs from the 1960s sound similar to each other and songs by certain producers like LA & Babyface and Stock Aitken Waterman. There's a song from the 1970s called Trying To Love Two by William Bell and many modern "soul blues" tunes (ig. Mel Waiters) have the same vocal arrangements. Malaco Records have a lot of soundalike songs too.

Certain genres I'd assume it'd be extremely difficult to make a case with because the genres themselves presuppose a certain similarity in sound. The only cases I can think of with salsa and merengue both came from Shakira who may never had been sued except for the fact that she's rich and had two of her biggest english language hits with tracks that pretty blatantly stole from lesser known (at least to the english speaking public) artists/songs. Wyclef and her completely ripped the beginning of a salsa song by Jerry Rivera, which was kind of stupid because that introduction was pretty unique. And she also blatantly ripped off a dominican artist for her merengue song called Loca.. The last thing anyone should ever get sued for are ripping off salsa or merengue tracks because there are few genres that are that simple to write something to. But I guess she probably doesnt write much of her tracks anymore so she needs to be careful with whom she works.

babynoz said:

SoulAlive said:

She's never done anything significant She had a debut album that flopped,then worked with Prince on some stuff,but I don't think she ever came back with another album.

I don't know what that has to do with the lawsuit but here's an FYI...

You're welcome.

Lol.. yeah I saw all of this. I kind of liked her acting (at least up to Crash), I only asked because it would be nice she appeared in something recent, but she doesn't appear to be working much. That last martial arts movie was a pretty bad movie and she only had a small role in it.

Nona shoulda went after MGMT for stealing "Love Sign" instead

[Edited 3/13/15 15:23pm]

SoulAlive said:

MotownSubdivision said:

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

You ain't the only one. I don't know how to view the trial verdict though.

I think artists are now gonna be less inclined to pay tribute to the past.We won't hear songs like "Uptown Funk" anymore because those artists are gonna be afraid of getting sued.

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

I respectfully disagree with you, but only because I think the Lawrence Welk estate might consider suing Dr.Dre & Sean "Puffy Daddy/P. Ditty" Combs for copying Welk's slowbeats idea.

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

I agree. The latest example? Tuxedo (Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One's Collabo).

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

True, but hey, they went to the source -- Niles Rodgers was a collaborator on that song. Maybe if Pharrell had hired Nona to sing the hook he'd be better off today! (Scratch that, I don't want to get you started . . . )

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Indeed. I think they've had diminishing returns but I've been a fan for 20 years.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

To me, Stone Rollin' is even better because it builds on TWISI.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

I'm not sure how the pendulum will swing, but it won't change the fact that the music business's model is eroding. There are scores of artists under the radar with distinctive sounds who deserve a listen and there's a very small chance labels will begin turning to them.

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

it's very difficult to getting back to that type of music because culture has been all but tapped out

which is why they try and go "retro"...

the industry is finished

lezama said:

babynoz said:

I don't know what that has to do with the lawsuit but here's an FYI...

You're welcome.

Lol.. yeah I saw all of this. I kind of liked her acting (at least up to Crash), I only asked because it would be nice she appeared in something recent, but she doesn't appear to be working much. That last martial arts movie was a pretty bad movie and she only had a small role in it.

No prob, I meant to quote SoulALive.

I think there's a thin line between being inspired by an artist/song or a musical genre and borrowing from or in some cases downright copying their work (either directly or indirectly). As long as the original is acknowledged and the sample(s) cleared then I don't think that's a problem. But in the case of 'Blurred Lines' which does sound very much like 'Got to Give It Up' by Marvin and them coming out saying it wasn't, you know, it just comes across wrongly. They used a 'Whoooo' from MJ in that song too from IIRC 'Don't Stop Til You Get Enough' and it sounds like Mariah singing 'Yeah Yeah' on 'Happy' also. Although going back to the 80's, Public Enemy's "It takes a nation..." used tons of samples and don't think they paid to clear those, same with De La Soul but in that instance they were using song fragments to create a new song. I think the other term is 'Interpolation' which as an example is Dre & Snoop 'interpoling' Leon Haywood's "I Wanna Do Somethin' Freaky" for "Ain't Nothing Like A G Thing".

babynoz said:

SoulAlive said:

She's never done anything significant She had a debut album that flopped,then worked with Prince on some stuff,but I don't think she ever came back with another album.

I don't know what that has to do with the lawsuit but here's an FYI...

You're welcome.

Filmography

• Harlem Nights (1989)
• Ali (2001)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• The Polar Express (2004)
• xXx: State of the Union (2005)
• Crash (2005)
• The Gospel (2005)
• Blood and Bone (2009)

Video games

• The Polar Express (2004)
• The Matrix Online (2005)
• The Matrix: Path of Neo (archive footage only) (2005)

Awards/nominations

• Black Reel Awards
  • 2006, Best Actress: The Gospel (Nominated)
  • 2002, Best Supporting Actress: Ali (Winner)

• Image Awards
  • 2004, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: The Matrix Revolutions (Nominated)

Discography

Albums

• Love for the Future (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• Language of Love (AmieStreet.com, 2008)

Singles

• "I'm Overjoyed" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• "The Things That We All Do for Love" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1993)
• "Love Sign" (duet with Prince) (NPG, 1994)

Can't believe no one remembers her role in the Matrix Reloaded. I also remember State of the

Union and The Gospel. Didn't know she was in Crash or Harlem Nights so she has done more

than giving credit for in the movie sector. Unfortunately she didn't fair so well in music but I was

rooting for her. I remember when she came on Soul Train with her dad when she was a little girl.

How time flies.

phunkdaddy said:

babynoz said:

I don't know what that has to do with the lawsuit but here's an FYI...

You're welcome.

Filmography

• Harlem Nights (1989)
• Ali (2001)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• The Polar Express (2004)
• xXx: State of the Union (2005)
• Crash (2005)
• The Gospel (2005)
• Blood and Bone (2009)

Video games

• The Polar Express (2004)
• The Matrix Online (2005)
• The Matrix: Path of Neo (archive footage only) (2005)

Awards/nominations

• Black Reel Awards
  • 2006, Best Actress: The Gospel (Nominated)
  • 2002, Best Supporting Actress: Ali (Winner)

• Image Awards
  • 2004, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: The Matrix Revolutions (Nominated)

Discography

Albums

• Love for the Future (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• Language of Love (AmieStreet.com, 2008)

Singles

• "I'm Overjoyed" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1992)
• "The Things That We All Do for Love" (Third Stone/Atlantic, 1993)
• "Love Sign" (duet with Prince) (NPG, 1994)

Can't believe no one remembers her role in the Matrix Reloaded. I also remember State of the

Union and The Gospel. Didn't know she was in Crash or Harlem Nights so she has done more

than giving credit for in the movie sector. Unfortunately she didn't fair so well in music but I was

rooting for her. I remember when she came on Soul Train with her dad when she was a little girl.

How time flies.

She's a pretty decent actress.

Strangely I never kept up with her music career.

Graycap23 said:

SoulAlive said:

thetimefan said:

I think there's a thin line between being inspired by an artist/song or a musical genre and borrowing from or in some cases downright copying their work (either directly or indirectly).

Marvin Gaye has a song called Praise in which he says in the lyrics that he hopes Stevie Wonder doesn't mind him taking a riff from Stevie.

MickyDolenz said:

thetimefan said:

I think there's a thin line between being inspired by an artist/song or a musical genre and borrowing from or in some cases downright copying their work (either directly or indirectly).

Marvin Gaye has a song called Praise in which he says in the lyrics that he hopes Stevie Wonder doesn't mind him taking a riff from Stevie.

Kashif should have a listen to Janet Jackson's "R&B Junkie" which uses the entire song, "I'm In Love" by Evelyn King, but with all new lyrics. CRINGEworthy at BEST.

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

I don't see Daft Punk or Jamiroquai doing anything near what "Blurred Lines" did. While they're influenced by the old sound, they're creating brand new songs from scratch and creating them from the ground up by playing all the instruments themselves. They're not bringing an actual Chic record in their hand into the studio, placing it onto a turntable, and using it as the actual background music behind their new lyrics. "Blurred Lines" sounds like the actual Marvin Gaye record itself was played, looped, and recorded onto their new song. That's not making a new song, that's making a new mix or remix of the old song, with it's actual music used as the actual foundation of their new song and simply adding different lyrics over it. There's a huge difference between being influenced by an old sound and making your own record from scratch with your own instruments using the sound as simply an influence instead of taking an actual record into the studio and recording it as background music for your own song.

.

I actually like "Blurred Lines", well hell, I should like it because I'm actually listening to Marvin Gaye's actual record playing in the background. And unlike most of these new artists, at least they don't slow the tempo down when they mixed the old song into the new one. Usually, they take an old song and slow it down to a damn ballad tempo when they sample it. Hell, I even made my own remix of it taking out the crappper's vocal part and adding in Marvin's vocals in that section. But I would much rather have an original song that's funky rather than simply a "remix" of an old song with someone else's vocals over it. Hell, I used to love the hell out of 2 Live Crew in the 1990s because even though they were a rap group and not making their own music, the songs they chose to sample were ass shakers and I loved the way they mixed them into the songs. But damn, after hearing "Planet Rock" and "Egypt, Egypt" mixed in every way imaginable, finally, I got bored with them too because if I want to hear "Planet Rock", I'll just throw on my Soul Sonic Force 12 Inch and hear the orginal.

.

I don't see this lawsuit stopping anyone from making funk if they really love funk and want to make it. What I do hope it will do though, is stop all this damn sampling. Hell, the 1990s are over so let them die already and force folks to either make their own songs from scratch, or get the hell out of the music business altogether so the ones capable of throwing down can stand a chance again. The flip side of that will probably be though, more songs with no samples at all and be totally stripped down to nothing but a slow cheap sounding beat....the type of shit they've been doing for years also. Hell, they've even got Miss Prince doing it these days in some of his sellout attempts.

Vainandy if you take away our samples... what are we supposed to do? Make actual music? Pharrell testified he can't even read notes on sight.

whitechocolatebrotha said:

MickyDolenz said:

Marvin Gaye has a song called Praise in which he says in the lyrics that he hopes Stevie Wonder doesn't mind him taking a riff from Stevie.

Kashif should have a listen to Janet Jackson's "R&B Junkie" which uses the entire song, "I'm In Love" by Evelyn King, but with all new lyrics. CRINGEworthy at BEST.

This discussion isn't about sampled and credited works.

But here's a song redoing "Got To Give It Up" using a direct sample


with Billie Jean drums

[Edited 3/17/15 14:12pm]

vainandy said:

I actually like "Blurred Lines", well hell, I should like it because I'm actually listening to Marvin Gaye's actual record playing in the background.

No, you're not. It's a new, different track.

Cinny said:

vainandy said:

I actually like "Blurred Lines", well hell, I should like it because I'm actually listening to Marvin Gaye's actual record playing in the background.

No, you're not. It's a new, different track.

Well, if it's new, they did one hell of a job re-recording it to sound just like the original. I'm not hearing "Planet Rock" vs. "Trans Europe Express" here where they came in and actually did the same exact song but totally re-recorded it themselves. What I'm hearing on "Blurred Lines" sounds to be the actual Marvin Gaye record looped in the background.

Speaking of re-recording something though, some of those remakes that Scary J Blige did sounded to me like she was actually trying to impersonate the original artist from the music, all the way down to the actual way she sang the songs. Like "Sweet Thing" and "I'm Going Down", when I would hear them on the radio at work back then, I would be like.... "Finally, the radio is playing an actual good song, even if they do have to dig back into the old records".....and then I'd listen for a while longer and I'd be like...."Wait a minute....that ain't Chaka or Rose Royce. What in THE hell?"....Hell, the music and the way she sang it sounded like she was doing a impression of the song rather than her own version. Hell, I used to call her the Rich Little of the music business.

vainandy said:

Cinny said:

No, you're not. It's a new, different track.

Well, if it's new, they did one hell of a job re-recording it to sound just like the original. I'm not hearing "Planet Rock" vs. "Trans Europe Express" here where they came in and actually did the same exact song but totally re-recorded it themselves. What I'm hearing on "Blurred Lines" sounds to be the actual Marvin Gaye record looped in the background.

Speaking of re-recording something though, some of those remakes that Scary J Blige did sounded to me like she was actually trying to impersonate the original artist from the music, all the way down to the actual way she sang the songs. Like "Sweet Thing" and "I'm Going Down", when I would hear them on the radio at work back then, I would be like.... "Finally, the radio is playing an actual good song, even if they do have to dig back into the old records".....and then I'd listen for a while longer and I'd be like...."Wait a minute....that ain't Chaka or Rose Royce. What in THE hell?"....Hell, the music and the way she sang it sounded like she was doing a impression of the song rather than her own version. Hell, I used to call her the Rich Little of the music business.

Your posts make me scream like Little Richard WOOOOOOOOOO

Scorp said:

Another major problem we are having is that mostly everything is centered around youth acts. In the 70s and 80s, you had artists in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, even their 60s making great songs, there stood greater opportunity for more creative output, way more range

Pharrell is in his 40s, and Robin Thicke and T.I. are firmly in their 30s.

Cinny said:

whitechocolatebrotha said:

Kashif should have a listen to Janet Jackson's "R&B Junkie" which uses the entire song, "I'm In Love" by Evelyn King, but with all new lyrics. CRINGEworthy at BEST.

This discussion isn't about sampled and credited works.

But here's a song redoing "Got To Give It Up" using a direct sample


with Billie Jean drums

[Edited 3/17/15 14:12pm]

.

Yup they're sampled Billie Jean drums, uncredited!

.

That version of GTGIU it more blatantly copyright infringing than Blurred Lines

.

vainandy said:

SoulAlive said:

Here's the thing...

to me,the best 'new' songs that I hear today are those that are inspired by the past.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is like a modern-day Chic song,with Niles on it playing guitar.

I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and their stuff is obviously heavily inspired by the late 70s...drawing inspiration from artists like Roy Ayers,Pleasure,and others.

Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It is a masterpiece to me.

I have been saying for years that we need to get back to that type of music and now everyone is doing the retro thing.But unfortunately,thanks to these ridiculous lawsuits,more artists might abandon the 'retro' thing and go back to making the lame shit-hop,modern crap that was dominating for so long (yeah,I know I sound like Vainandy (lol),but y'all know what I'm saying).

I don't see Daft Punk or Jamiroquai doing anything near what "Blurred Lines" did. While they're influenced by the old sound, they're creating brand new songs from scratch and creating them from the ground up by playing all the instruments themselves. They're not bringing an actual Chic record in their hand into the studio, placing it onto a turntable, and using it as the actual background music behind their new lyrics. "Blurred Lines" sounds like the actual Marvin Gaye record itself was played, looped, and recorded onto their new song. That's not making a new song, that's making a new mix or remix of the old song, with it's actual music used as the actual foundation of their new song and simply adding different lyrics over it. There's a huge difference between being influenced by an old sound and making your own record from scratch with your own instruments using the sound as simply an influence instead of taking an actual record into the studio and recording it as background music for your own song.

.

I actually like "Blurred Lines", well hell, I should like it because I'm actually listening to Marvin Gaye's actual record playing in the background. And unlike most of these new artists, at least they don't slow the tempo down when they mixed the old song into the new one. Usually, they take an old song and slow it down to a damn ballad tempo when they sample it. Hell, I even made my own remix of it taking out the crappper's vocal part and adding in Marvin's vocals in that section. But I would much rather have an original song that's funky rather than simply a "remix" of an old song with someone else's vocals over it. Hell, I used to love the hell out of 2 Live Crew in the 1990s because even though they were a rap group and not making their own music, the songs they chose to sample were ass shakers and I loved the way they mixed them into the songs. But damn, after hearing "Planet Rock" and "Egypt, Egypt" mixed in every way imaginable, finally, I got bored with them too because if I want to hear "Planet Rock", I'll just throw on my Soul Sonic Force 12 Inch and hear the orginal.

.

I don't see this lawsuit stopping anyone from making funk if they really love funk and want to make it. What I do hope it will do though, is stop all this damn sampling. Hell, the 1990s are over so let them die already and force folks to either make their own songs from scratch, or get the hell out of the music business altogether so the ones capable of throwing down can stand a chance again. The flip side of that will probably be though, more songs with no samples at all and be totally stripped down to nothing but a slow cheap sounding beat....the type of shit they've been doing for years also. Hell, they've even got Miss Prince doing it these days in some of his sellout attempts.

I see what you're saying.Btw,I love "Blurred Lines",regardless of whether it's a rip-off or not used to bump that jam in my car all the time

SoulAlive said:

Nona is so full of shit.She apparently wants enough drug money to last her for a lifetime.

She admitted to using drugs?

[Edited 3/18/15 2:53am]

nd33 said:

Cinny said:

This discussion isn't about sampled and credited works.

But here's a song redoing "Got To Give It Up" using a direct sample


with Billie Jean drums

[Edited 3/17/15 14:12pm]

.

Yup they're sampled Billie Jean drums, uncredited!

.

That version of GTGIU it more blatantly copyright infringing than Blurred Lines

.

I believe the liner credits for "Got To Give It Up" on Aaliyah's album actually lists the percussionist of Billie Jean, Paulinho Da Costa. Of course, when you are covering "Got To Give It Up", you can't add songwriters to the composition (ie. Michael Jackson can't be the writer of GTGIU).

vainandy said:

The flip side of that will probably be though, more songs with no samples at all and be totally stripped down to nothing but a slow cheap sounding beat.

That is exactly the current sound. You have a new crop of young beatmakers that can't even find any good samples, and they sure as hell can't afford to license them anymore.