Stolen Riffs - Marillion, Neuschwanstein

Originally posted by sigod Marillion have had 'Grendel' hanging around their neck for many years now and I'm sure if they could climb into a time machine, go back and erase it from existance they would have done it in a shot. You are right though, that section is a very unsubtle lift. But it's there and much like the Fish/Horgarth debate, it's never going to go away. Me? I quite like it. As for other musical lifts, Beatles/ELO, er........

I like to regard the '9/8 rip off' section of Grendal as a tribute. Its so obviously based on Apocalypse in 9/8 they would be hard pushed to deny it. I think they were just paying homage to one of the greatest prog bands ever! And quite respecfully, I thought..

I think its easy to plagarise by accident, and often you can tell if an artist is 'ripping off' or 'celebrating' someone elses work. The Marillion/Genesis comparisons - after Grendal - were unfair I think. Marillion were perhaps the most original sounding of the neo bands IMO, at least the ones I've heard.

DT are famous for their re-use of Metallica riffs - especially on "Images and Words"

Note that only a small part of Grendel (3 minutes max out of a 20-odd-minute song) uses the "Apocalypse in 9/8" rhythm - and that the music around it is noticeably different. The lyrical ideas in that section follow similar lines, because of the subject matter, so presumably Marillion wanted to conjure imagery from "Apocalypse...".

Zeppelin and Purple had plenty of stolen riffs rearranged!

For the curiosity: Finnish punk legend Pelle Miljoona took the (heavy rock -type) guitar riff from Genesis' "Dancing withe the moonlit knight" to build up a whole song (song's title means 'motorway is hot').

But apart from plagiarizing, there's another way of borrowing pieces of earlier works: a quotation that is meant to be noticed and recognized as a quotation. I guess it has to be very short and recognizable not to be confused with 'stealing'. For example, Pendragon's "Last Man on Earth" quotates Moody Blues' "New Horizons". ("But I'm never gonna lose your precious gift/heart..."). This is probably more common in art music, symphonies.

Barclay James Harvest was mocked as 'poor man's Moody Blues' (quite unrightly, I think), and then they did a song of that name, which is ALMOST the same as Nights in White Satin!