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Just listened to the song "Your Love is King" by Sade from 1984.

http://youtu.be/k1ljpLQ1V6Y


The intro sounds almost identical to Brian's "I'm So Lonely" from 1 year later.

http://youtu.be/emKjSkUpDrk

I wonder if Brian (or one of the ISL studio musicians) was a Sade fan. Too close to be a coincidence, don'tcha all think?

If one were of a cynical bent, one might observe that some of BW's tracks for the 85 BB album do seem to show signs of having resulted from being locked in a room with albums from some of the big commercial heavy-hitters of the time and being told by a certain Doctor/life manager "Er, OK Brian... write something like THAT!!".

This Sade similarity is one example (Sade was MASSIVE in the UK and then the States from, what, 1984 onwards? Totally not my cup of tea, it's the sound of a million beiged-out blandathonic middle-class dinner parties with cheap instant coffee to finish for me... but she WAS massive). And who can fail to notice the similarity between the bridge of Getcha Back and Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl'?

Of course, this is a cynical interpretation of events. It's just as likely that Brian, emerging from his wilderness years and starting to listen to contemporary music again regularly for the first time in ages, latched on to these two artists, who were in heavy rotation at the time, and started to write inspired by them.

Or... Landy told him to do it!

We'll never know, but yes, I hear the similarity.

ALSO - I could swear I read an interview in the mid-90s that was originally done in the mid-80s where Brian specifically name-checked Sade as someone whose music he admired. Anyone remember this, or am I several ivories short of a concert grand?

[excuse the simile at the end there... whenever I think of the Landy era, I just can't get that bloody frightening image of 1990 Brian in Speedos draped across a piano on a beach out of my head. And no, god dammit, I do *not* want it there!! My eyes!!! My eyes!!!]

Watch this and you will change your mind: http://www.amazon.com/Sade-Bring-Home-Live-Blu-ray/dp/B007NESBK2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426085949&sr=8-1&keywords=sade+bring+me+home

"Uptown Girl"? No way.

How about "Hungry Heart" by The Boss? "Getcha Back" is basically the same song as "Hungry Heart"!

Most assuredly WAY, dude!

In Getcha Back, check the brief vocal bridge section that runs 1:01 to 1:03. Compare this to the first part of the vocal break in Uptown Girl in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuMWrfXG4E) from 1:27 to about 1:29. It changes after that, but one is an absolute songwriter's rewrite of the other, and the rhythmic feel of one clearly informs the other, too. It was the first thing I thought of when I first heard Getcha Back.

As to Hungry Heart... well, I hear that influence too in Getcha Back, obviously. Who couldn't? You'd have to be deaf (not just half-deaf). But I knew Uptown Girl better when I first heard Getcha Back (without particularly liking either the Joel or the Springsteen tune very much), so I noticed that link first.

Springsteen wasn't exactly a shy and retiring, non-commercial influence in 1984-5, either, with Born In The USA under his belt, so that's another plank in my (admittedly completely made up) theory that someone shut Brian in a room with some Top 30 album artists as he was recovering in 1983-5 and said "write stuff... that's something like these!"

Oh, and I will try the Sade link, thanks. I've never heard anything by her that doesn't instantly dull the legs out from under me, but that doesn't mean there isn't something she's done that's amazing, and I've just never heard it...

Ooh ooh, I got one!  I hope I haven't posted this one before...

I'm totally not saying anyone ripped anyone off, BUT, the intro to Diedre... well, not the INTRO intro, but as soon as the "Deirrrrrrrdreeeeeeeee" part is over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWR_qL_mxo0

... sounds just like intro to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, which is more uptempo, but yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHHLISaLe44

Also, Arcade Fire have a song called Here Comes the Night (Time)!

Eh?  EH!?  No?  Ok!  ;D

Since Brian's Imagination came out, I noticed the similarity of the opening verses of Your Imagination to Lou Christie's I'm Gonna Make You Mine

I'm Gonna Make You Mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLemdORSx_E

Your Imagination

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJPCp1W7se8

Brian did not write Getcha Back.

Just saying.

The Lou Christie thing is well spotted, as is the Sade track. Although the Sade thing had more to do with the arrangement than the actual tunes of the respective songs.

Well, it sounds to me like Brian needs to pay $7.4M to Sade and Lou Christie!


http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/blurred-lines-pharrell-robin-thicke-copied-marvin-gaye (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/blurred-lines-pharrell-robin-thicke-copied-marvin-gaye)

The similarity to the Sade song is more in the production than the song itself. Blame Steve Levine.

No, but Mike did and he has said that the song was influenced by Hungry Heart.  He has also said that he did not like the Steve Levine production because he (Love) wanted a more "ballsy" sax to make sound more like Hungry Heart and has even said that if someone like Springsteen covered it someday with such a sax it would be a huge hit. Also, I have read Springsteen say that Hungry Heart was influenced by the Beach Boys sound. So there. I know, I know--do I have links? No. But why would I make this stuff up...

I think there are some published quotes with Mike talking about the song. It was apparently also part of the thought process (allegedly) behind having Dave sing "Getcha Back" during C50. I always found the cognitive dissonance of that performance interesting; the guy who left the band in 1963 singing one of their big 80s tracks.

I'd never heard that Lou Christie one before. That's REALLY similar.

Turning Point / So Long sounds kind of like a slow-paced version of Why Don't They Let Us Fall in love by The Ronettes

The Your Imagination intro has always reminded me (right or wrong) of a Swedish kids show from the 80's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY2dev6uLHg&spfreload=10. Another Swedish (hit) song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmnvoC57eaU&spfreload=10) from 1986 is also similar to this kids show - because they are both based on Ceciderunt in profundum by Georg Philipp Telemann.

Totally. Wow, good observation!

The first 50 seconds of Rio Grande sound like Bruce's Going Public song Rendezvous

Guess he ran out of Chuck Berry riffs.

I'm not sure if the sax intro to So Lonely is Brian's composition, though. The sax solo may be ad lib over Brian's chord progression. I think Brian's original compositions may have sounded more vintage than they appeared on the album. Like It's Just A Matter of Time, which originally seemed to be a piano-driven doo wop ballad and on the album has a different vibe. I would love to listen to the original Crack At Your Love demo.

Here's another one. The vocal bass line to "It's Just a Matter of Time" vs. "Sincerely" by the Moonglows. Check it out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxVKN114M0

Well, Timothy White writes in his Brian bio that he overheard Brian in the shower singing Springsteen's "Cover Me". And he did want to meet Madonna.

Given how much the Boys tended to add and embellish Brian's vocal ideas (note that the vocal arrangements on all of Brian's songs from the '85 album were credited to "Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys"), that Nick might have been an idea of Mike's.

Sure, it's quite possible he just ad-libbed it because it fit the tempo and chord progression and sounded good at the time. I don't have too much of a problem with this sort of thing anyway. It just a sort of shout out to their musical roots and influences. The obvious Springsteen rewrite is more problematic-- would've been cooler if they'd just covered "Hungry Heart" straight up.