Songs where other artists are imitated (or: The Other Artists Have it!)

[jfrancispastirchak]

More Money For You And Me--Four Preps

Very few remember "More Money..." To this day, remembering this parady still makes me chuckle, particularly the spoof on Dion & The Belmonts, "Why Must I Be A Teenager In Love?" (Why Must I Be A Teenager In JAIL?). Thanks!

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Seven pages of threading here, and, unless I've missed one, nobody has mentioned Tom Petty seemingly channeling Bob Dylan! Please correct me if I'm wrong...

How about the early days of The Osmonds. More than one listener mistakingly called my show, requesting that new "apple song" by "The Jackson-5". Of course, they were confusing the J-5 with the Osmonds and their breakaway hit, "One Bad Apple".

 

[cd637299]

Seven pages of threading here, and, unless I've missed one, nobody has mentioned Tom Petty seemingly channeling Bob Dylan! Please correct me if I'm wrong...

How about the early days of The Osmonds. More than one listener mistakingly called my show, requesting that new "apple song" by "The Jackson-5". Of course, they were confusing the J-5 with the Osmonds and their breakaway hit, "One Bad Apple".

I don't think it helped much when Rankin-Bass Animation had cartoon series of both groups!

cd

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Seven pages of threading here, and, unless I've missed one, nobody has mentioned Tom Petty seemingly channeling Bob Dylan! Please correct me if I'm wrong...

How about the early days of The Osmonds. More than one listener mistakingly called my show, requesting that new "apple song" by "The Jackson-5". Of course, they were confusing the J-5 with the Osmonds and their breakaway hit, "One Bad Apple".

I don't think it helped much when Rankin-Bass Animation had cartoon series of both groups!

cd

Good point, although animation never hurt the Beatles. Then again, The Beatles were The Beatles!

 

[firepoint525]

Bruce Hornsby made Don Henley sound like a guest vocalist on a Bruce Hornsby record when he (Hornsby) wrote and produced "End of the Innocence" for Henley. Hornsby himself even ridiculed that "drum machine" that turned up on all his records, and even said that if he himself had sung "End of the Innocence" that fans would have started groaning about him forcing that piano-bass-and-drums sound on the audience for the third straight time! : Hornsby knew that he would never have a hit with "End of the Innocence" himself because by 1989, audiences were growing weary of that "Hornsby" sound, but yet they bought it when Henley sang it!

 

[firepoint525]

Seven pages of threading here, and, unless I've missed one, nobody has mentioned Tom Petty seemingly channeling Bob Dylan! Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Petty has sounded a lot (vocally) like Dylan in recent years, but if anyone is "channeling" Dylan, it would be Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen is not necessarily trying to sound like Dylan (unlike Petty), but he has sung a number of folk songs in the last few years, the type of songs that Dylan sang, or would have sung.

Interestingly enough, Springsteen has his own copycat with John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. While Springsteen was on the charts with "Dancing in the Dark," Cafferty (aka "Eddie and the Cruisers") had a "dark" song of their own with "On the Dark Side." Even Cafferty's videos resembled Springsteen's!

For his next album Cafferty was said to have sounded like Jackson Browne, but it was much less obvious than his previous attempt at being a Springsteen wannabe.

 

[Jay F]

Tom Petty sounds like Roger McGuinn from the Byrds to me.

 

[Jay F]

In case no one mentioned it Redeye-Games sounded like (or was a ripoff of) CSNY.

 

[cd637299]

I had not heard this one in almost 40 years, so forgive me...I had no idea that other artists were imitated on this one!

Performed by a record-holder, most Hot 100 appearances without hitting the top 40!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7u5DQzm2Xc

cd

 

[radiobum]

I always thought Peabo Bryson sounded like Boz Scaggs on "Can You Stop The Rain ?".

 

[SolidGold16]

Just recently, I found the biggest rip-off song I've ever heard, it's so much like the original that I can't believe no one sued...most everyone knows the original by the Grass Roots

The original: Grass Roots - Midnight Confessions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC1JGHF9s_w

The rip-off by: Gentrys - Why Should I Cry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7RmS6beSqc

I had never heard this song by the Gentrys, I only knew "Keep On Dancin'' which I suppose was their biggest hit.

However, one other big example of an entire group copying another is Starcastle, sounds exactly like Yes, esp on their LP "Fountains of Light". I bought that LP and enjoyed it, although I'm a big Yes fan, this was a nice sound too.

Starcastle and Fountains of Light

Work began on the bands first self-titled LP and it was released in early 1976. The response to the music of Starcastle was overwhelming and despite some detractors' accusations that they sounded like a Yes clone, the album received heavy FM airplay throughout the US & Canada. The group began an even more intensive touring schedule including some of the biggest shows of their careers. The first album sold well, and Epic Records sent the band to Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec with producer Roy Thomas Baker.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcastle

 

[borderblaster]

The Grass Roots "Let's Live for Today" was originally done in Italian as "Piangi Co Me" (Cry with Me). Of course the "sha la la la la" part is reminiscent of "I Count the Tears" by The Drifters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-nyIelmlEs