AXL ROSE, PLAGIARIZER?
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 12:22pm by Axl Rosenberg
Aaaaannnnddd my heart is broken.
Blabbermouth reports that Independiente and the Domino Recording Company are suing Guns N’ Roses for ripping off two songs by Ulrich Schnauss for the song “Riad N’ the Bedouins,” which appears on the band’s forever-in-the-making flop of epic of proportions, Chinese Democracy. Now, a new law suits against Axl Rose and GN’R is filed approximately once an hour – Rose has even blamed said law suits in the past for being part of the reason for CD’s delay (as if) – so, normally, this would not be news.
Except that I’m 99.9% positive that Schnauss is correct, and he was ripped-off.
I can’t post the Guns N’ Roses song here because, well, one near-lawsuit a week is a enough for me, thanks. But listening to the music in these videos… well, those are the intros for “Riad.” It’s undeniable. It’s note-for-note. Unless someone stumbled upon the idea for the exact same pieces of ambient music, which seems pretty unlikely.
That Axl Rose is a dick isn’t news. But I never thought he was a dick who’d steal from another artist. Add to this the fact that bassist Tommy Stinson, formerly of The Replacements, is credited as being a co-writer on the song, and, well, fuck me naked with a spoon. This just sucks.
Here are the Schnauss songs.
Now if Axl could please come to the Mansion and kill my dog, y’know, just to make all the bullshit he’s put his fans through for almost two decades really complete, that’d be swell.
-AR
I would be scared to tell anyone that he stole my music if it was as bad as Democracy
haha agreed
That’s hard to dispute, but it is only a few seconds of ambient noise at the beginning of the song. And I would bet that Tommy Stinson just wrote the guitar part and wasn’t involved in the production where the alleged plagiarism was perpetrated.
Ulrich Schnauss makes some great music. No wonder Axl would totally rip parts from his songs.
Very true, this guy is amazing. Axl is a dick, but at least he’s ripping off some great artists!! :)
“flop of epic of proportions”…? Let’s keep it real – years in the making withstanding – in today’s market, no – it was certainly not a flop. World wide sales (including (shit stain on the universe) itunes sales) have seen to the record selling several million copies. Not too bad…in today’s market. Of course the sales figures don’t mean it’s a good record through and through – there are some good tracks. Still, the record cover was all wrong. Here is the ‘correct’ cover:
large version:
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/732/chinesedemocracylh1.jpg
Small(er) shot – for you poor saps with antiquated internet connections:
http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/4628/chinesedemocracycf0.jpg
No need to say thank-you – I am just making right what was wrong.
I’m pretty sure the album was declared platinum before it ever hit shelves largely due to the Best Buy worldwide exclusive. Unfortunately I’m having a hard time citing the source right now but I seem to recall that the units SHIPPED was counted as sales before they were actually SOLD.
Whether or not they all sold I don’t really know, but the album overall still was a gigantic disappointment. It was up and down the charts blindingly fast.
Pretty sure units shipped counts towards gold or platinum certification. Becomes a problem when those units come back as returns, of course. But I don’t know the terms of the Best Buy deal.
My saying the album is not a flop is based on actual world wide sales – 2.6 million so far as I can tell via soundscan statistics. I actually thought it was more – hence my saying “several million…”. Oh well – in today’s market a couple million sold is a long way from a flop. I firmly believe that had Axl not used the Gn’R name AND got up off his ass to work the promotion train, it would have been the year’s biggest seller.Damn shame that Axl Rose chose to not present his record for what it is: a solo project featuring a long list of mostly guest performers.
I thought that artists couldn’t copyright music, just lyrics. Seeing how that all music is really only a progression or embelishment of some other piece of music. MaYbe I’m wrong, but I don’t know. Does anybody else?
Didn’t stop Coldplay from settling with Steve Vai for ripping off the riff from that one song for that other song that was in the iTunes commercial. And Coldplay paid Kraftwerk to use a melody from “Computer Love” on the same album. You can’t copyright chord progressions but if there is a key riff or melody, I think you can indeed.
You numbnuts, it was Joe Satriani…know what you’re talking about or shut the fuck up
You can copyright music – I’m pretty sure it’s to do with how many notes in a row you use that are the same. I thought the number of notes you can use is 4, but thinking about it, loads of songs would break that rule, so maybe I’m talking crap!
Yeah, it sounds the same, but I’m a big Ulrich Schnauss fan who was pleasantly surprised to see him mentioned on this site. Anyone who likes Shoegaze-y/Ambient stuff should get his albums asap.
i heard that gnr stole riffs from hanoi rocks
Can I sue Trent reznor for ripping of a bunch of tunes from my mind?
I remember singing ‘I can’t stop slipping’ in the shower like 6 months
before he even recorded the song!
That mind reading bastard!
And I mumbled something about ’see the animal in his cage that you made’ when I was 12!
Goddam you Trent!
wheres my ‘leave the stage and not do my job’ body guard hand book?
wtf, what part is the stolen one ?!
That’s what I want to know…
Just because someone does a Cover Album doesn’t mean
they steal songs or music…
And, just for the record, I like Chinese Democracy…
It may have taken a bit long for what ever all the reasons were,
and it may not be the G-n-R sound from before but get over it…
Things change, people grow, new ideas develop.
If you don’t like it, that’s cool, but people should not
speak of what they do not know….
What part isn’t the stolen one. heh. You remember “the spaghetti incident?” album, not one song was their own. i mean a whole album of nothing but cover songs. that was the album that gave me the ”what the fuck?” moment and lose all hope in GNR. doesn’t surprise me that Axl would steal someone else’s shit. Rose that is.