Happy Music Monday! We'll get right to the point: some artists like swiping. Scott's found five songs that borrow - ahem - heavily from classical music. Sometimes they admit it, and sometimes they don't. Let's start with this soulful homage:
The hardest part of a pop hit is finding a tune for your lyrics. So when you get a chance to collaborate with Johann Sebastian Bach, you take it, right? The Toys also passed this song along to The Supremes and it might have made a cameo in Electric Dreams depending on which version you prefer to credit. Bach's probably too dead to care anyway.
Copyright don't matter when it's a few hundred years old! More to come, along with the Spotify playlist, right after the jump.
Our Spotify playlist is back! This time it's Names and it's a companion to our previous two weeks collecting name songs from men and women. Check those out in our great big mix after you enjoy our current Music Monday below.
Elvis Presley - Can't Help Falling In Love
How many weddings have included this touching tribute to love? It doesn't lessen the King's version to find out that his song was based on a much older song from 1780. As you can hear, there were in fact some changes made. We think that qualifies him under fair use, right?
Mr. Joel is not at all a stupid fella. He loves music, and history, and probably would be a great person to hang out with in a bar. That might be why his version of a Beethoven Sonata actually gives a writing credit to Ludwig Van. After all, piano players gotta help each other out when they can, right?
Barry Manilow - Could It Be Magic
Man, I wouldn't be putting Barry Manilow in a Music Monday without good reason. But the guy plays a mean piano, and as such, he knows from whom to borrow. His cover of this Chopin Prelude doesn't really hide a thing. In fairness, as you can see above, neither does Barry, who credits the composer before starting his comedy bit. And who knows, maybe Chopin would have enjoyed disco.
The most 70s sound this side of Meat Loaf. And yet, it's really from the start of the 20th Century! Rachmaninov gets most of the credit here, and maybe we could just write that off as a fluke, if it wasn't for Carmen's follow up hit, Never Gonna Fall In Love Again, which ALSO borrows from Rachmaninov. Once is cute, Eric. Twice is just lazy.
Know any more classical thievery? If so, hit the comments below, because they might be pretty sparse this week, and we'd love to learn who's boostin' from who. Even if you can't think of a one, you're still welcome in our Turntable.fm room for the regular Music Monday enjoyment. And we're not the stealing type, so be aware: some images come from their corresponding Wikipedia page and are here under fair use.