Yes, we’ve heard that Joe Satriani is allegedly suing Coldplay [link]. Stealing other people’s music and putting it out as your own work is despicable-ish. Coldplay should be stoned in some…stoning place for their misdeeds, however, making such an announcement the day after said album is nominated for 7 Grammys is pretty low too.
What we’re pretty sure you haven’t heard is OUR take on what really happened (and will happen) during this saga, so we’re here to clear the air a bit. Pay attention, this is some confusing stuff.
A Long, Long Time Ago –
Music is invented
Five Minutes After Music Is Invented –
Somebody plays the chords C, D, G, and Em in that order.
1956 –
Hair metal (minus the hair) alien Joe Satriani is born, apparently to human parents.
1957 –
Satriani is given his first truly awful pair of sunglasses
2004 –
Satriani, while wanking away, plays a C chord, followed by a D, then a G, then an Em. He called it “If I Could Fly”.
2007 –
Creaky Boards write “The Song I Didn’t Write”, featuring the chords C, D, G, Em, obviously the folk-pop version of the hair metal song.
2007 –
Chris Martin, exhibiting his phenomenal cosmic powers, watches Creaky Boards perform in New York City at CMJ and is in England, all at the same time.
2008, May –
Coldplay write a song they didn’t write, “Viva La Vida”, featuring the chords C, D, G, Em.
2008, June –
Coldplay play Viva La Vida in an iPod commercial with a really pretentious background (Editor’s note: this is only pretentious if you can’t make purple paisley swirls jump out from the walls behind you. We can do this, so we’re speaking on your behalf.)
2008, June –
Creaky Boards make a passive-aggressive video calling out Coldplay for “ripping off” their “rip-off”.
2008, December –
Joe Satriani rips off the Creaky Boards video for accusing Coldplay of writing a song they didn’t actually write.
2008, December –
Joe Satriani sues Coldplay for stealing his chords.
2009, January –
Creaky Boards sues Joe Satriani for ripping off his video.
2009, February –
Viva La Vida wins a Grammy.
2009, March –
Every other artist who has ever played a C, D, G, Em uploads a video accusing Coldplay of stealing their chords, causing YouTube to crash.
The moral of the story: Creaky Board’s new album Brooklyn is Love is really good.
Update (4:35 PM ET)
More evidence courtesy of Farlcow :
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Hilarious – thanks for the insightful timeline.
wow you guys are fucking morons…hope you die of aids
I agree with the guy above me!
Coldplay’s “Talk” is an admitted rip-off of Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love”.
@Adel 156
And Chris will also say that he started out wanting to be Radiohead. Failing that, they became Coldplay.
Such is music.
Who Coldplay really owes money to is Travis and U2, in that order. Take the Travis and the U2 out of Coldplay, and you have nothing left.
This article is hilarious… I totally lulz
lame bullshit
This is a stupid article. Do you not have ears? It’s not about chord progression it’s about stealing the melody straight up.
[...] Exile provides an official timeline to the whole Satriani vs. Coldplay debacle. (Because C, D, G, Em is clearly the most obscure chord progression [...]
Similarity in these melodies is based on the context of the theory involved in the chord progression. C, D, G, Em confines the composer to a very basic palette, and a simple whole tone scale played over those chords will get you close to this melody. In other words, a five year old with missing digits could write the goddamn song. Joe Satriani’s talent to rip off Jeff Beck notwithstanding, Coldplay tends to borrow gratuitously from the accepted pop canon. Still, they sell millions of records and win awards and name their children after produce… I’d say Coldplay wins this round.
this is so funny…
“The moral of the story: Creaky Board’s new album Brooklyn is Love is really good.”
true, but where’s the review? these guys need some more press that ISN’T linked to coldplay in one way or another.
If they didn’t want the publicity, they probably shouldn’t have asked for it. The only thing they can do now is write an album that transcends this news or they’ll just be that “We said Coldplay ripped us off”-band that really had ripped off Joe Satriani.
…the album is good, though.
Actually the review is sitting half written on my laptop. give it a few days.
Umm, not quite that simplistic. You can play the same chords in the same order and sound completely different by altering timing of the changes. You forgot the copying of Joe’s melody and tempo. If you listen to the overlay on Youtube it is obvious.
does nobody else notice that the clip of Viva La Vida used in the Satriani is slightly altered, so as to make it match up better? of course there is more to it then just the chords but, with those chords, there are some pretty obvious melodies. this is one of them. it’s coincidence, nothing more.
Hey if you know a song that has the same melody as all the Viva La Vida, If I Could Fly, and Song I Didn’t Write but which predates all of them, then let us know at Radio Exile and we’ll give you your choice of any 10 CD’s we’ve reviewed this year PLUS Creaky Boards have thrown in some awesome swag! http://radioexile.com/2008/12/08/douchebag-alert-a-point-by-point-rebuttal-of-joe-satriani’s-interview-with-musicradar/
[...] Related Links: Douchebag Alert: A Point By Point Rebuttal of Joe Satriani’s Interview With MusicRadar.com [link] Radio Exile’s Official Timeline To Coldplay Ripping Everybody Off (As We See It) [link] [...]
[...] of honest journalism, so here’s our Official Timeline of exactly how things got to this point.read more | digg [...]
[...] the success of their latest album, Brooklyn Is Love, the awesomeness of Brian Wilson and this whole Satriani-Coldplay-Creaky Boards saga. Here’s what Andrew had to [...]
Joe had hair during the hair metal time period. This article is really not helpful to anyone.
This article is also several weeks old. Joe’s hair isn’t the issue, that he’s a money-grubbing whore is.
To the guy that wrote “a simple whole tone scale played over those chords will get you close to this melody”:
Now the G whole tone scale has six notes which are G,A,B,C#,D#,E#(F natural) and G.
There are only three notes common to the root key of this song which is sort of G major (E minor – same key signature). Anything other than the first two bars of “three blind mice” which I suspect is out of copyright, would sound awful.
I believe he meant ‘G Major’ and not ‘whole tone’
Satriani’s case is based upon Coldplay using substantial original portions of his song, notably the rhythm, and the melody. It doesn’t actually state that the use of the chords is under contention.
To the guy who says “wow you guys are fucking morons…hope you die of aids”. You need to calm down. Normal people don’t usually react like this, unless they are being threatened or are under a whole load of stress. When I like to chill out, I pick up my guitar and play a few chords like C to D to G to E minor and think of new songs and how I could make a million if people bought it.
[...] begins with them stealing their recent successes from third-rate, money-grubbing guitarists [Radio Exile's Official Timeline to Coldplay Ripping Everybody Off (As We See It)] and now, well, they’ve given themselves the opportunity to prove how very worthless the [...]
Don’t forget In the Airplane Over the Sea featuring chords G, Em, C, D (in that order) :p
[...] I saw a really great video from last night’s performance that was floating around Twitter and while we do think that Chris and co. are thieving twats, this was a nice homage to the Beastie Boys who had to cancel their headlining gig on Friday due to [...]