Top 10 One Hit Wonders You Didn't Know Were Rip-Offs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- These one-hit wonders were total ripoffs. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 instances where artists who are known for primarily one song, were (perhaps, arguably) caught red-handed with somebody else’s material. Our countdown of one-hit wonders you didn't know were ripoffs includes “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, “Crazy”, "Blurred Lines", and more! Feel like debating sample viability or one-hit wonder status? Hit us up in the comments below! Pitchforks and torches optional.
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#Royalties - เพลง
Feel like debating sample viability or one-hit wonder status? Hit us up in the comments below! Pitchforks and torches optional.
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Madison beer sings you showed me how you do too but is it just a cover ?
Calling Men At Work a one-hit wonder is blasphemy to the Aussies! It's like us Aussies calling Alanis Morrisette a one-hit wonder. Do some research and read the room.
"Under Pressure" vs. "Ice Ice Baby" is one reason why you should only sample with express permission from the artist whose song you want to sample.
I feel like it should be mentioned that the result of the Men at Work trial was a contributing factor to the death of Greg Ham. He took the result very personally, suffered from anxiety and depression and his heroin addiction severely worsened, leading to a heart attack a couple of years later.
As an aside, I have to question how Men at Work, a band that also released international hits like Overkill, Who Can it Be Now, Be Good Johnny, It’s a Mistake and Dr Heckyll and Mr Jive, can be considered one-hit wonders.
You can be a one hit wonder in some places/countries in the world and in others not, maybe most people in USA and Canada(many of Watchmojos videos is made from that perspective) only remember them from their hit "Down Under" if they were to mention a song by them on the spot/it was the only song to be big on the hit lists there?
men at work were so much more than one hit wonders, nearly every song by them is great, Overkill and Who can it be now are my favorites.
Because in most places around the world that was thier only hit
no idea that was what happened to him rest in peace to are right they are more than on hit wonders
Down under is not even their most successful song. Who can it be now was also a #1 hit and spent more weeks on the charts. They also had other top ten hits.
For number 7, if it takes 20 years to realize a massive hit song ripped off your song, you shouldn’t be entitled to shit. Just my opinion.
I agree
I am laughing at this in agreeance 😂😂
Was only because of a corporation buying the catalogue of the original song in question, then looking for further profit. One of the band members committed suicide over this.
Thank you for the update, WatchMojo..!! I remember going to my friends' houses back in 1990, and most of them had Vanilla Ice's 'Cool As Ice' movie poster. 🤣 One of them went to school's annual dance contest while wearing Vanilla Ice's metal plated black hat seen from the movie. 🤣🤣🤣
Music is basically math. There's a specific limit to the number of ways that notes can be arranged, and much, much fewer of those arrangements that sound good. Given how small of a sample that courts have said infringe there's probably hundreds of other songs that infringe on other songs that just aren't popular enough for someone to have noticed. I think the whole thing is just dumb. Just think of how many songs use Pachelbel's Canon. (Hell, Spotify has a whole playlist of them.) That doesn't come up because copyright has expired on it a long time ago. I think that as long as the use of previous material is "transformative" it's OK from a creative standpoint. And copyright protections last way too long. At the rate that music is made and the small sample length that courts have ruled on, there's going to be a point at which you simply can't make a song with a pleasing arrangement of notes that doesn't infringe on some song form the past.
There are 122,461 possible note combinations in a 5:00 minute song, according to Google. But there are 4 billion possible melodies(note combinations times rhythm variations) in the same 5 minutes. As long as the melody is different, it should not be considered a rip-off.
That Bitter Sweet Symphony is a good song, sampled or not........
Totally agree, thanks!
Off topic: I honestly didn't know Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was originally a Dolly Parton song until 5 years ago!
It also wasn't an actual love song - it was a goodbye to a former colleague of Dolly's. She left him as a colleague to work on her own stuff, and he wasn't happy. It was to say she always loved him as her friend, but if she stayed working with him, their friendship would have been ruined.
@@KittyKatt_Luna80s woah! That's some backstory!
Whitney paid Dolly due Royalty for the Song . Dolly said that she made more money from Whitney 's version than her own version . Dolly's version is Miles better , IMO .
@@ChrisM-fz6xx interesting fact!
In a recent interview, Dolly said Whitney made it her own. Class act.
The first time I heard ice ice, baby, I was pissed cause I recognized the tune from Queen. The first 4 notes and I was oh they are playing Queen and then this song appeared.
it's a sample.
And more ppl remember ice ice baby. Being a karen about music is unbecoming
Right? Talk about a buzzkill 😂
No, More People remember.. Oh, Bohemian Rhapsody? We Are The Champions? Its a Kind of Magic. Dozens of Hundreds of hits, not just ONE, that the ONLY Catchy part of was Deacon's Bassline. LoL
Are you still upset, bro??
Ray Parker Jr. is NOT a one-hit wonder. He had multiple Top 40 hits as part of the group Raydio and had several others as a solo artist.
Men at work neither.
Mind blown at the extra little bit about Nirvana at the end. Never knew the riff was from another song. Gah.
Now a days I don't know what's original anymore
I know. Some songs have been re-done so many times it's hard to know.
Vanilla Ice also took the extra step of purchasing the ownership rights to Under Pressure because it was faster and easier than facing Queen in court and went onto a new, profitable career in music licensing.
Really? I heard they sued his ass off. Why would they SELL an Iconic song of theirs to V I?
No he didn't and doesn't own anything of "Under Pressure". He did get sued and Bowie and all the Queen members get royalties and V I had to pay back royalties.
The Verve weren't one-hit wonders in the UK.
The Drugs Don't Work and Lucky Man were other big songs for them.
Exactly and arguably drugs don't work bigger a hit but wasn't hit in America
Omg thank you for this comment ❤
@@ValerieMais You are welcome. 😀
This is such a clickbate video. As Two live Crew and De La Soul aren't one hit wonders. Come on watchmojo
Robin Thicke ain't a one hit wonder either
Neither is Men at Work.
I used to get mad when I would hear the intro to ice ice baby, thinking it would be the much better song Under Pressure...
Glad you don’t get mad about it anymore. 😴😴😴
Only Terry Jacks could take an upbeat song and turn it into a case study on depression.
mnyeah - check out he original lyrics by jacques brel and we will talk again
"Seasons in the Sun" is an English-language adaptation of the 1961 Belgian song "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man") by singer-songwriter Jacques Brel. Rod McKuen translated the song into English. Terry Jacks rewrote some of the lyrics, although he took no writing credit for it. He deemed the original version and its translations as "too macabre". The inspiration for the rewritten lyrics was his close friend Roger, who was suffering from acute leukemia and died four months later. The Terry Jacks rendition, which was later dedicated to the friend, has the dying man giving his last words to his loved ones with whom he shared his life, much like the original. The song's theme remained, prospective slightly altered, and Jack's arrangement was actually musically more upbeat.
It has always been a depressing song. It's about dying!
Leonard Cohen might have tried it! LoL Or Nick Cave... :)
Also, John Cale took Beethoven's Song Of JOY, and turned it into a Dismal, SLow piece called "DAMN Life!" LoL
If I remember correctly The Verve had permission to use the sample. The problem was they based the entire song on that sample and then got sued for it.
It's more that Klein (by that point ex manager of stones) was an all around greedy tosser who even ended up in jail because of unpaid taxes. After he died, the rights of the song were returned to Verve.
yeah it wouldnt have been an issue if they used a small part of the sample instead of the whole thing
So basically they covered a cover ?
@@nicktaylor2657 basically yeah
It's hard to believe that Acuff-Rose lost their lawsuit. "Pretty Woman" was basically the same song as by Roy Orbison with slight changes in the lyrics. It would be like saying that the new version of "We Didn't Start the Fire" owes nothing to the original version by Billy Joel!
Amazing video watch mojo of one hit wonders ripoff others artist songs for there game,fantastic job.
I never thought about it before but I definitely hear the similarities between Ghostbusters and I Want A New Drug.
The first version of Season In The Sun I remember hearing was on a compilation album called "Explosive Hits '74" and a guy by the name of Bobby Wright sang it... That's the version I know and love most of that song...
I have a record with Rod McKuen singing "Seasons in the Sun" which he translated from the Jacque Brel version and gave Brel songwriting credit. That was the same song that Terry Jacks recorded.
Seasons in the Sun? First heard it from Nana Mouskouri when I was a kid. It was a BIG HIT for her also.
It's kind of weird when you look back at the 50s and 60s in regards to music. Back then everyone covered everyone else's stuff. The amount of times I remember a track I used to enjoy from my parent's or aunt's CD collection, search for the track name, and get half a dozen different artists singing it and have to check them all to get the correct version (and in some cases still struggle to find it) is ridiculous.
Now of course, it's almost impossible to cover someone else's track unless you get explicit permission.
@@lorddavid3dxw My sister used to buy cheap records of sound alike artist that did covers of popular music. One could tell that they weren't the original artists, but some were good.
I remember reading something about how Walk the Moon's smash hit "Shut Up and Dance" sounded eerily identical to Genesis's song "Invisible Touch"
Invisible Touch... Not Worth Stealing, really, LoL
Why was Terry Jacks on this list? The original 45 record shows Brel (original composer) and McKuen (English translation) as the composers, Jacks takes no credit at all, except for the arrangement, which does differ. It was fairly common for English speaking songwriters to translate foreign hits (which sometimes for poetic purpose led to some word changes), as it was for other songwriters to translate English lyrics into their native language. No rip off involved/ I think a public apology to Mr. Jacks should be issued.
I feel there was little bit of Can't touch this in Ice Ice Baby as well with its beats.
Blurred lines is my favorite music video for obvious reasons lol
Even if we are only considering the US charts, a lot of these were not One-Hit Wonders. Robin Thicke was prominent on the charts during the 2000s, before blurred lines. Ray Parker Jr had another year end hit in the 80s. It’s hard to consider Gnarls Barkley a One Hit Wonder when Ceelo Green had chart success. Vanilla Ice had Play That Funky Music in the 90s.
You Showed Me was originally by the Byrds so the Turtles don’t have as much credit compared to the late David Crosby
Also Madison beer released the song but is hers a cover of the song ?
Ray Parker Jr and Men at Work are not one-hit wonders
Lol at Men at Work and Vanilla Ice being considered one hit wonders
I feel like using someone else’s music as the inspiration for your song shouldn’t be a big deal as long as the song isn’t exactly the same. Especially since it’s hard to come up with stuff that sounds good like a lot of people have mentioned already. I think the only true reason to win one these cases is when the songwriter didn’t get the appropriate permissions or too much of the song is exactly the same as another persons song.
So if a musician openly declares that he or she is inspired by another musician, he or she is opening themself up to a potential lawsuit from the one that inspired him or her.
No, far from it. Inspiration doesn't mean straight up copying others' music, taking literal rhythms and melodies to build your own song on. Led Zeppelin can inspire someone to play rock music, but that doesn't mean any of the songs of this new artist contain rhythms or melodies taken straight from Zeppelin songs. A band like Slayer was inspired by older heavy metal bands to push the boundaries of extreme music, but that doesn't mean they copied riffs from Sabbath or Priest one on one. A band like Kraftwerk could inspire someone to experiment with electronic music while sounding nothing like Kraftwerk at all. Inspiration isn't the problem. Actually, in many cases (not all because there are always exceptions) I would say this points to a lack of inspiration, instead of inspiration being the driving force behind all of this.
@@thenecrosanct4906Hell yeah, John Fogerty was accused of stealing his own music with "Old Man Down the Road", because of song publishing rights, just because of the same tone of the songs as CCR, but he wrote most of those songs back in the day... so I would not like to be on that jury to decide that
The bass hook from Who Let The Dogs Out sounds a lot like Whoop, There It Is.
The only one I hear is Vanilla Ice. There is so much sampling in hip hop that many songs could be considered a ripoff
Ray Parker Jr was no one hit wonder. Had many solo hits as well as his previous band Raydio. Get your facts right!!
That last one tho lol
RIP Geordie Walker
6:48 the song seasons in the Sun was also recorded by Nirvana and is actually really good
So many times it's not even the musician that has a problem, but some middleman mad he can't profit off of someone else's work.
I remember when Jon Fogerty was sued for plagiarizing a song he actually wrote because the 12:34 record company, not he, owned the rights to it.
It’s crazy y’all have De La Soul on a one hit wonder list and don’t even have their biggest hit on here🤔
So I didn't know Gnarls Barkley's Crazy was from a spaghetti western but I know a movie called Layer Cake with Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller 2004 where a song was playing that was very similar.
Literally never heard that 2 live crew song lol you missed that one Mojo
A few of these I didn't know.
Some of these one fit wonders are not.
Agreed 👍 - Almost ALL were NOT one hit wonders. Bad title I think
@@MKEMarta and many weren't ripping off artists, either.
I want to add something to the case between "Down Under" and "Kookaburra". Both of those songs sound like that song that goes "Ain't nothing gonna break my stride. Nobody's gonna slow me down."
Kookaburra rather OLDER than THAT! :)
Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder was after Down Under 1983 Down Under 1982
That has got to be the strangest pronunciation of Kookaburra I have ever heard.
Yanks are notoriously bad at pronouncing Australian words correctly.
Dennis Miller (before he turned into a dbag) played "Uner Pressure" as his opening tune for Weekend Update right after Vanilla Ice performed "Ice Ice Baby"
2 Live Crew also sampled Kink's All Day and All of the Night Doubt they got permission for that either
I object calling De La Soul one hit wonders...and a lot of this list aren't rip offs, more like failed sample clearances....and the 2 Live Crew example is pretty disingenuous to what the video should be about, cause they won their case, and it's not a "rip off"...if you included 2LC, why not Weird Al, since it's basically the same idea? Before the the Biz Markie court case, lots of hip-hop pre 90's had loads of uncleared samples.
Weird Al does parodies, which CLEARLY have a different intention. Plus, he always gets permission from the original artists beforehand.
@@DiscoSamurai 2 Live Crew was a parody as well, and won on those grounds. And you must've forgotten the Coolio/Weird Al situation, since Coolio was vocal about it at the time...regardless, for parody you don't need to get permission from the original artist, so again, the inclusion of 2LC is wrong, if they completely ignore Al...because neither 2LC or Al are ripping off artists.
Legands and 2 live crew as well luke is the man
Yeah they can miss me with that “de la soul” one hit wonder shit.
De La Soul were awesome with Gorillaz. Feel Good Inc & Superfast Jellyfish anyone?
I love bitter sweet symphony
How are De La Soul one hit wonders?
they aren't.
To non-hip hop/pop fans that only know the group from their collab with gorillaz.
the old spaghetti westerns are amazing...
Its been 7 minutes the bots go crazy
De La Soul and 2 Live Crew as one hit wonders?
Oh no, not the shenanigans...smile
Def not a one-hit wonder, but Guns 'N Roses took the main riff for Paradise City from the song "Zero The Hero" by Black Sabbath
I don't doubt that most of these songs are rip-offs, but it would've been nice if we had a side by side comparison of the parts of the songs that are ripping off/being ripped off.
The one with the Baha Men has about zero actual content. Boils down to "Lots of songs going way back has this beat/call and response....and here's a sample of...none of them." Why even have this in here then?
CLICK BAIT! A number of these artist are NOT “one hit wonders”. De La Soul?! ..tell me you DO NOT listen to Hip Hop without telling me you do NOT listen to Hip Hop. 😂
yeah, terrible list and reaching like hell
I’m surprised “surfing USA” isn’t on the list
even Mojo wouldn't be silly enough to consider the Beach Boys as one hit wonders - give them a little credit
five minutes in and none of these are rip offs..
I don't know if this could be considered a ripoff, since both soundtracks come from Lucasfilm, but the themes from The Mandalorian and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are similar.
Err... "Play that funky music" and "rolling in my five point o", "Ninja Rap" and "I love you."
Vanilla Ice was NOT a one hit wonder.
"Theirs goes, ting ting ting, ting ting ting ting tatingting. Ours goes, ting ting ting da da ting ting. It's not the same! 🤷
Come As You Are has more clear similarities to Life Goes On by The Damned
That kukubora song sounds nothing like Men at work wtf
Agree. It's a bit of a stretch.
Down Under has a few notes from Kukaburra (sp) in it. It's not very long, which is why it took years for the copyright owner to successfully sue.
@@alliemarie3539 And it flew under the radar until a question on the music quiz show Spicks & Specks asked what song was sampled on Down Under.
The Ghostbusters song is sampled 😮
Nothing wronh with being expired by a certain musician and/or grouo but come up with your own material
Goodbye its hard to die, Seasons and the sun was used heavily on John Wick: Chapter 4 trailer(s).
🎶 Shocking to learn these hits weren't original! 😲
many were sampled. The songs in themselves are original (for the most part)
Why is there no thumbnail?
8 of your top videos look blank for some reason?
The verve are not a one hit wonder..they're follow up 'Lucky Man' hit billboard top 20
Darryl Hall admitted to copying "Billie Jean"'s bass line for "I Can't Go For That". Ed Sheeran copied "No Scrubs" for "Shape of You". Sam Smith was sued for allegedly copying Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down" for "Stay with Me". Michael Bolton plagiarized the Isley Brothers' "Love Is a Wonderful Thing". I didn't think there was anything to the "Blurred Lines" and "Stay with Me" suits other than greed
Actually, Michael Jackson admitted to John Oates that he had used parts of Hall and Oates work for 'Billy Jean"
Aussie's couldn't care less what you say here, Down Under is pretty much their national anthem, as most Aussie's i have seen say it is.
As is Great Southern Land and You're The Voice.
I don't care if Bitter Sweet Symphony used someone else's Music , it's still a Masterpiece .I'm 70yo and it's one of the most beautiful Songs that I have ever heard . Screw Alan Klein .
My sweet Lord vs I Feel Fine..although not a one hit wonder, they’re similar in their style.
2 live crew were not one hit wonders. They had many hits. I mean you guys showed their greatest HITS album cover, and it was Vol. 2 WTF
they shouldn't be on the list, period. They didn't rip off anyone. They won their court case on grounds of Parody.
Robin Thicke isn’t a one hit wonder. He had hits before Blurred Lines.
Dear, Watch Mojo, why are there not any honorable mentions anymore?
There are. Sometimes, they won't do them in their videos.
I think who let the dogs out were a rip off of woop there it is with similarities
don't you mean whoot there it is, and whoomp there it is
Ray Parker Jr. most definitely ripped off Huey Lewis.
this is the only real legit entry on the list. The rest, not so much.
But he's not a one hit wonder
Watchmojo I love your videos but come on play fair when you include songs like The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony and Ice Ice Baby who both used samples as backing tracks and not include Kanye West's Gold-Digger which used a sample of Ray Charles 'I got a woman' which not only has a sample from that song but has a theme about a man defending a woman who might be taking advantage of him.
I just think The Verve and Vanilla ice's have their samples but are about different things but Kanyes track has roughly the same ideas otherwise I like you guys videos and keep up the good work 👍
Huey Lewis did win his lawsuit by opening his mouth on a drunken night he opened himself up for a lawsuit by Ray Parker jr. Because the lawsuit against Ray Parker Junior was made so that so long as Huey Lewis kept his mouth shut Ray Parker Junior would be okay but because Huey Lewis opened his big mouth on a drunken night, Ray Parker Junior was able to see Huey Lewis right back
Men At Work are not a one hit wonder. They have several popular songs including another number 1 hit Who Can It Be Now?
The boy band Westlife also covered Seasons in the Sun
re post?!
By the way, Men at Work are far from "one hit wonders." For the love of God, do better research.
You do realize that Men at Work had more than one hit don't you?
After 25 years it's up for grabs. Even I knew Roy Orbison did Pretty Woman.
Most of these are no one hit wonders, Men at Work has at least 4 songs that charted in the top ten
To call Men at Work one hit wonders is a massive failure of research. It's almost like you didn't even care. Oh wait, you probably didn't.
They've been bad at that research thing for a long time.
Idk if the title should be “that you didn’t know” when you include in the section it’s “common knowledge” or “everyone knows by now”
I didn't know Ice ice baby was a rip off song?
#1 melania trump
cover of 'sound of silence' (simon & garfunkel).......it was pure joy of total silence for 5 minutes 💋
Here comes ole flat top…
If you had to ask me to name a 2 Live Crew song, it would **NOT** be the song in the video. I had never even heard it before. It would obviously be "Me So Horny". Stretching the idea of a "one hit wonder". This isn't even a hit?
I Figured Out Decades Ago That Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen and David Bowie Ice Ice Baby (1990) Is a trash song anyways
sampling isn't ripping off.
I been knowing
@@thecunninlynguistits the same beat thats not sampling sampling would be taking a part of it and changing it up
@@protegeracing1052 no, not necessarily. First hip hop songs were literally songs being rapped from break beats from the original disco track
@@thecunninlynguist if it was sampling why did he get sued ?
2 live crew is knew because uncle luke invented the parental advisory sticker on albums so stores would sell his records. Because cops were being called raids getting carried out
Super uncomfortable with De La Soul being on this list. I know Watch Mojo has never been hip-hop savvy, but this is borderline disrespectful. Even with your flexible definition
2LC shouldn't be on this list either, because they didn't rip off anyone. If 2 Live is on here, Weird Al should be too.
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