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Lisa Stansfield (left) and Anja Rupel (right). Both born in 1966.
I don’t know if many people have noticed, but Lisa Stansfield’s The Real Thing and Slovenian singer Anja Rupel’s Plašč ljubezni (Coat of Love) are very similar. In fact, the chorus is very much the same.
My good friend and sexy-hot local DJ Niquid masterfully spliced together both choruses so that you can hear for yourself: (Please note that the audio just alternates between the two songs — nothing else was done)
IE users or anyone else having problems playing it can download it here. (Right click, save as)
Both songs were released in 1997 but despite consulting various locals (including Slovenia’s Living Wikipedia) I couldn’t figure out which came first; or if this was a coincidence, an approved remake, or “creative borrowing.”
(Thanks Nik!)
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I just realized that they are also of the same age (born in ‘66)
BTW: Link to the file is a bit screwed up (your www address is doubled)
Oh, and thanks for the compliments
Impressive!! Great find, Michael and good job, Niquid!
BTW here’s the link that worked for me with IE & quicktime: “napni uho”
Okay, fixed the link. (I think)
A friend of mine checked and the Rupel song is officially only credited to Aleš Klinar. So it boils down to either coincidence or some uncredited borrowing…
Do you remember this (soundtrack to the film 300) discussion of plagiarism?
Ah, well… Klinar… Once someone once asked him about his plagiarism and he replied that so many songs were written that some chords are bound to be repeated… Bloody cheek!
I think I am really sad, but it took me about 2 minutes to find out that Lisa Stansfield’s album “Lisa Stansfield” was released on the 24 March 1997 (on Arista) and that the single The Real Thing entered the UK Top 40 at no. 9, also in March 1997. That was the British side - and you do the Slovenian bit. Oh. And 1997 was the year of OK Computer.
BTW: hats off to Niquid. If I remember correctly he once already worked his magic on Okupatorka by Zoran Predin and City of Blinding Lights by U2.
Who the #uc# is this Anja woman?!
Me and my girlfriend are listening to extraordinary radio station and every weekend we hear some music, that is to us familiar. How its that possible? And then we realized when we heard “slovenian” version on same day later…
You dont have to guess which is original..
In Yugoslavia was very popular “sport” to buy album from group, which was unknown in our country, and then write slovenian tekst on the melody…And maybe change every 8 note (or sth like that)…
I am thinking about to make a list of such examples, but is not that easy,…
Cokolesnik: those are harsh words. Can you back them up? I’m not denying the existance of plagiarism in our neck of the woods (think Saska I-message-my-front-teeth-to-make-them-big Lendero, for instance), but saying that it was a “popular sport” is a spit in the face of Slovene/Yugoslav musical creativity, and I can asure you that wasn’t in short supply. Besides, Michael’s example here is from 1997, when Yugoslavia was limited to Serbia and Montenegro, and Lisa Stansfield is not exactly “some unknown singer”, either.
Besides, the example mentioned a bit higher is the exact opposite - U2 doing a song that sounds exactly like a 20-or-so years older Lačni Franz song… So is it a popular Irish sport to buy old Yugoslav records and rewrite them, too?
It’s a known fact that most of the songs written by Aleš Klinar are plagiarism. This is just one of them.
It was a national sport. Right now I could remember 3/4s of Domicelj’s opus, Siva pot, i think Mlinar na Muri also falls into this category, and there were certanly some songs from 60s&early 70s, but I don’t know that era so well.
CX20RE: those are cover songs. I’m pretty sure Domicelj credited the music to its respective owners. Cokolesnik was saying plagiarism was a national sport. And I’m not sure I can agree there.
That said, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it turned out the song that sparked this debate was plagiarised.
Remember Alenka Godec with “Ostani z mano” (EMA 2006)? This Klinar song was almost as good as original “Good Luck” from Basement Jaxx.
In slovenian law its definition, that music is plagiat, if it have the same 8 (?-i am not sure about exact number) notes in a row. And so musicians changed every 8th note.
In 10 min browsing the web, haven’t fount something useful on word plagiat.
Like i said, it’s very difficult to back up those words, because i dont know english titles and autors of original songs. It will take a lot of time to find english originals, and then make a list.
What are you saing about:
Saša Lendero-Ne grem na kolena
vs
Anna Vissi-Kanenas??
Right, a good old Yugoslav ditty there…
Yes, Lendero’s song is a blatant example of plagiarism. And Rupel’s song is possibly plagiarised as well. But saying that plagiarism is/was widespread is going too far, IMO. It is and was no more and no less present here than anywhere else. And no, cover songs don’t fall into the category of plagiarism, as long as the music is duely credited and the proper copyrights arrangements are made; nor are they a phenomenon limited to this geographical location. Think Jimi Hendrix’ All Along the Watchtower, for example.
Domicelj and Siva pot? Unlikely. Aleksander Mezek, on the other hand, never denied that his Siva pot was a cover - or, rather, translation - of John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. His other great success, Ljubljanske ceste, is also a cover, of Ralph McTell’s Streets of London. No, I am not some Mezek expert, but sort of thought that people know that sort of things.
How about Rambo Amadeus and his remake of Hey Joe?
Not to defend her a whole lot, but fair’s fair and Saška Lendero did a Slovenian remake of Anna Vissi’s Kannenas. Author (Anna’s husband) is credited, as is composer and arranger (again, Mr. Vissi). Furthermore, from what I know Anna Vissi and her hubby sold the right for translation of Kannenas to Menart Records, so everything’s fine and dandy in that department.
Mežek and Siva pot/Country roads: Mežek got permission from John Denver to do the translation. Please bear in mind that it was done in the 70s (or early 80s) when Mežek was in London and at the time global copyright was not as evolved as it is today. The same goes for Lynyrd Skynrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, of which Tomaž Domicelj did a cover/translation with Moj dom je Lublana.
As for Aleš Klinar, however, enough has been said - he never really denied plagiarising.
As for 8-bar limitation: things are a bit stricter. This limitation basically means that you can use eight (or in some cases only four) bars of a particular song for non-commercial use. For example: I can make a radio jingle out of rock classics, but I can’t use them to produce an advertisment. This does not apply to other songs, however. The definition of plagiarising is that the new song bears clear resemblance to original songs, without added artistic or musical value.
For example - if you used a 7-note James Bond theme in your song, that would be a clear plagiat, despite the fact that the theme is much shorter than eight bars.
Remakes/covers, on the other hand, are OK as long as you credit the original authors. Take Orleki and their version of Hey Joe, for example
My hat goes off to you, sir, for bringing more factual knowledge into this discussion then I can muster on this field.
Also, my apologies to Saša Lendero for defaming her - the way the whole business had been introduced in the media, it appeared as though it was plagiarism, and I’ll confess to not having her CD where I could check who had been credited with the music, or even giving enough of a damn to go beyond casually noticing the plagiarism debate in the media.
By the way has anyone heard a song called V meni je California by slovene band California?
Listen and compare the chorus with Bon Jovie’s Never say goodbye.
To make this a litlle bit more funny the guy who wrote this plagiat is now in charge of SAZAS ( agency who protect rights of slovene authors of music)
That are the people without own ideas, but they know how to leave with plagiats and if the state don’t do nothing than it’s all OK for them LOL