Category: Familiar Sounds

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Familiar Sounds

Wall of Voodoo vs. The Who

SO I have this wise and learned friend. He is the one who introduced me to ‘Mexican Radio’ by Wall of Voodoo. After hearing it, I bounded up to him and went ‘this sounds a bit like ‘My Generation’!’ 

‘The song by The Who?’ he asked. 

‘Yes!’ I nodded earnestly. 

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ he replied. ‘I’ve listened to both songs COUNTLESS times and have never noticed a similarity. Your ears are dysfunctional.’* 

Shortest sound clip ever, I AM NOT CALLING PLAGIARISM, I am just saying there is SOME similarity and it may just be two notes BUT. IT’S. THERE. 

Enjoy the next 8 seconds.

 

*paraphrasing
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Familiar Sounds

Woven Bones vs. The Rose of Avalanche

Big ups again to the friend with the fantastic hair who shared the Monkey 3 vs. Stone In Egypt soundalike with me. This time it’s Austin vs. Leeds as a little Texan band called Woven Bones seems to have heard a slightly less little UK band called The Rose of Avalanche and consequently riffed opp the rip from ‘L.A. Rain’ and used it in their track ‘Let it Breathe.’ Bonus ups and much gratitude for having pieced the audio file together for me so I did not have to do much/any work at all on this one.
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Familiar Sounds

Sixpence None The Richer vs. My Bloody Valentine

aka ‘WTF?!?!’ 

Sometimes I hear a song and I’m all ‘OH this sounds an awful lot like… but it couldn’t be…’. I chalk these first impressions down to over-eager ears and allow myself to forget about them. However if the comparison pops up the next time I hear the track, and if it continues to pop up on subsequent listens, I give up and post it on here, no matter how ‘WHAT?!? NO!’ it may seem. No, please, just listen – it sounds impossible, but I swear I’m not delusional. 

It’s just that the two notes opening Sixpence None The Richer‘s ‘Kiss Me’, possess a strikingly similar texture to the two notes opening My Bloody Valentine‘s ‘Don’t Ask Why’ – crazy, I know, but: 

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Familiar Sounds

Elastica vs. The Stranglers

I have an informal, constantly updated list of potential soundalikes that need to be covered. Experiencing an unplanned early morning wake up today, I made a cup of tea and put a record on. ’twasn’t long before my eyes went wide and I looked for the nearest hard surface to bonk my head against. HOW could I have missed including this? 

Um, yes, so – ‘Waking Up’ by Elastica aka ‘Story of My Life’ is more than slightly fond of ‘No More Heroes’ by The Stranglers – but perhaps you already knew this.

 

Listen, and have yourself a merry Britpop morning because I know I’m enjoying mine.
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Familiar Sounds

Oceansize vs. Pearl Jam

Perhaps Oceansize picked their name off a certain Pearl Jam song and perhaps they were worried no one would know this and so felt compelled to insert 45 seconds of  ‘Oceans’ into ‘Saturday Morning Breakfast Show’

 

If you don’t think so, you obviously haven’t pressed play yet.

 

Many, several thanks to my talented shoegaze soulmate Talha for sharing. Dig his MySpace, there are nice sounds on it.
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Familiar Sounds

Nirvana vs. The Front

This was a tricky one to put together – sift through weeks of Facebook feeds to find the name of the track, track down the track, have track refuse to cooperate with Audacity, Google for help, mess about with bitrate, samplerate and assorted other rates, finally get sounds and sound-editor to make friends, and finally – here you go:

A warm welcome to returning guests Nirvana who feature this time with the even more iconic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Its similarity to the chorus of ‘U-Mass’ by the Pixies has been documented but I’m not getting into that. No, this is something I discovered thanks to a cluey friend on the book of faces. I had never heard of The Front before and I certainly had never heard ‘Sunshine Girl’. Or had I?

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Familiar Sounds

Spiritualized vs. Pachelbel

So Pachelbel‘s Canon in D Minor has a chord progression so standard it’s been used as the base for a million pop songs and one scathing stand-up sketch. By ‘it’ I mean the chord progression and not the canon itself. No, the canon itself has only been used as the base for one song (that I know of) and that one song is the sublime ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’. Give it up for Spiritualized. 

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Familiar Sounds

The Stone Roses vs. Primal Scream

a.k.a. the Battle of the Titans (or something substantially less cliche).

 

The brilliantly dark ‘Made of Stone’ off the frequently considered best album of the decade/century/ever – The Stone Roses – lifts its chorus from the jangly little C86 alumnus Primal Scream‘s ‘Velocity Girl’ 

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Familiar Sounds

The Voices vs. Neil Young

Many, many thanks to Jaguar over at Air Atlantic Radio for bringing this one to my attention. If you’re like me and dig Gazer Fare, you’ll dig this station – it knows its stuff.

 

The Voices are truly a great band. But hahaha, The Voices, did you think you’d be able to get away with sanding down Neil Young‘s ‘After The Gold Rush’ and painting it a shade of ‘Goodbye’?

 

You could, actually. Blasphemy alert: I prefer the newer song.

 

 

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Familiar Sounds

A Place To Bury Strangers vs. The Cure

They’re one of my very favourite bands, but I like how APTBS are the first repeat ‘offenders’ on here. Why? Because when you look at their, er, ‘sound graph’ on Audacity, all you see is one thick, steady blue line. It’s great. Anyway, thanks go out to Eric for making me aware of how much ‘Keep Slipping Away’ sounds like The Cure‘s ‘The Baby Screams.’