web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Coldplay

  • The Coldplay/Satriani Conundrum

    So I’m sure that you’ve all heard that guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, contesting that their #1 hit “Viva La Vida” sounds like his “If I Could Fly”. Plagiarism suits have been commonplace in the music industry since at least the early Seventies. Remember the “My Sweet Lord”/”He’s So Fine” dustup? (actually, I wasn’t born yet, so I don’t). In the Nineties, the plagiarism suit hit a couple of my favorites. Michael Jackson was sued for lifting a minute and a half of a classical recording on his hit “Will You Be There” and not giving credit. Sister Janet and Des’ree had a little issue with Janet’s “Got ’til it’s Gone” having a similar melody to Des’ree’s “Feel So High”. And our very own NKOTB were accused of stealing “I’ll Be Your Everything” from Percy Sledge-Sledge lost, by the way. If I was Percy, I’d have spent more time suing Michael Bolton for fucking up my signature song).

    Anyway, the two songs have obvious similarities, but it begs the question: with only so many available notes and chord progressions and melodies in the world, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there would be songs that sound similar to one another? It’s entirely feasible that Coldplay had no idea the Satriani song existed, and if they did, they’re idiots because they should’ve known that Satriani would find out and sue. However, I’m surprised there aren’t more songs out there that just by coincidence wind up sounding like other songs.

    Here are the two songs: what do you think?

  • So Much for Prognostication: The 2009 Grammy Award Nominations

    Well, for the most part, it was out with the old and in with the (fairly) new when the Grammy nominations were announced last night. With 8 nominations for Lil’ Wayne, 7 for Radiohead and Coldplay, and 6 apiece for Jay-Z, Kanye West and Ne-Yo, the hipness quotient got raised quite a bit. There were also a couple of surprise shutouts, as Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige, both Grammy favorites, got relegated to minor categories despite two of the biggest selling albums released during the eligibility period. There were a ton of surprises. Here are a couple of them.

    *Ne-Yo for Album of the Year: An album that kind of slipped by unnoticed on the critical scale, Ne-Yo’s third album is sharing space with Lil’ Wayne, Radiohead and likely winner Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for Album of the Year. Pretty impressive.

    *Where’s Leona Lewis for Best New Artist? “Bleeding Love” got nominated for Record of the Year and Leona got a nod for Best Female Pop Performance, but she got beat out by Duffy, Adele (who scored a surprise nomination for Record of the Year), The Jonas Brothers (!!!), Lady Antebellum and Jazmine Sullivan (with an unexpected 5 nominations) for this award.

    *AC/DC gets nominated for Best Rock Performance, Group: Not so much a surprise, but I bet our own Mikey Hersh just peed his pants.

    There are plenty of other surprises-and surprise omissions-but you’ll just have to rifle through the list of nominations yourself.

  • …As The Best of Lists Come Floating In…

    Check out this list of iTunes and last.fm’s top downloaded singles of 2008. As you can see, it was quite the year for Coldplay and Rihanna, both of whom will probably figure heavily when the Grammy Award nominations are announced tonight. Every year, I predict the winners of the February award ceremony, and I generally call the winners pretty closely (which says as much for my prognostication skills as it does the Grammys’ predictability). Here are the artists and albums I think will be nominated in the three major categories.

    Record of the Year: Coldplay’s Viva La Vida is the front runner here. Leona Lewis and John Mayer are probably sure things for Bleeding Love and Say (which I also think is the front runner for Song of the Year), Rihanna will probably be nominated for either Take a Bow or Disturbia. Katy Perry could snag a nod for I Kissed a Girl. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kanye grab a nomination for Homecoming. We might see some love for Chris Brown’s With You, with outside shots for M.I.A.’s Paper Planes and Adele’s Chasing Pavements, and don’t count out Mariah Carey’s Touch My Body or Madonna’s 4 Minutes, despite the relative disappointment of their album sales.

    Album of the Year: Coldplay is again the front-runner in this category, far and away. Also look for Radiohead’s In Rainbows to score a well-deserved nomination. Lil’ Wayne had the year’s biggest selling album with Tha Carter III, but Grammy generally doesn’t roll out the red carpet for hardcore rap acts. Alicia Keys is almost certain to get a nod for As I Am, while labelmate Leona Lewis could score big here, too. Dark horses here include Jack Johnson, Metallica and Carrie Underwood, and we can’t forget The Eagles’ huge-selling Long Road Out of Eden.

    Best New Artist: Leona Lewis is the obvious front-runner here, but we could see love for a variety of different artists. Fellow Brit chanteuses Adele, Duffy and Estelle (whose American Boy could also see a Record of the Year nomination) could all follow in the steps of last year’s winner, Amy Winehouse. Indie faves Vampire Weekend and The Ting Tings could pop up in this category, as could Timbaland proteges OneRepublic. Also watch out for country group Lady Antebellum as well as American Idol’s Jordin Sparks and Jennifer Hudson.

    We’ll do a recap of the nominations tomorrow after the announcements have been made!!