Homage or rip-off? You decide.

cardiff jon

cardiff jon

Member
Mike Stipe was over at my house the other day and I mentioned how much I liked his more autobiographical work. He suggested I do something in a similar vein about my own upbringing in Southampton, England, and together we dashed off the following in approx 2 hours:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=3180&alid=-1 Song: "Where we're from".
We're now involved in serious litigation as to who's been ripping off whom, and I would appreciate any advice.
 
Lindsey Buckingham is sitting next to me as I type this, so I'll just throw in his thoughts: The similarities to R.E.M. are kind of striking, but it's not a direct ripoff of anything that either of us can think of right off the bat. At certain frequencies, your voice has a timbre not unlike Mr. Stipe's, and that probably doesn't help matters much. It's a pretty paint by the numbers melody, so if somebody thinks you're ripping off R.E.M., then you should remind them that in fact, you're ripping off 75% of all pop/country music in the universe, as we all do.

Oh, mixwise, Lindsey (I just call him 'Lin') ...anyway, Lin thinks that the guitars are a little hot in the mix. Balance them out with some more low end from somewhere, and then they might not seem so dominating.
 
I'll be honest... I didn't think it sounded like R.E.M. at all.

And I agree the guitars may have been a tad loud.
 
Lemme revise that... the vocals are not really too quiet...
It's more that the guitars have no low end to speak of.
My mind ends up focusing on the right side guitar...
Because it's ALL top-end it seems.
 
OK, got that. I presume you mean the 12-string - there's feedback electric that side as well.
I've goine through the entire REM back catalogue and I'm glad to say this song isn't exactly the same as any of them, though if you cross Nightswimming with Electrolite you might get the same tune but very jumbled words.
 
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