In songs, you can discover a excellent line amongst shelling out homage and thieving a sound — and lots of popular artists have crossed it.

Rock’s historical previous is littered with situations of bands ripping off tips from fellow musicians. In some situations, it was a riff, a melody or probably a certain instrumental aspect. In a lot of other people, artists have pilfered lyrics or full tunes from other functions.

As you’d anticipate, accusations of plagiarism are commonly accomplished with denial. Several rockers have absent to court to safe their track record, insisting that any similarities amongst their tracks and others’ do the job had been entirely coincidental.

But what about rock stars who’ve come suitable out and admitted to borrowing from other artists? Turns out, a lot of massively productive musicians have achieved just that.

Examine Far much more: Basic Rock Artists Who (Allegedly) Ripped Somebody Off

“What do they say? ‘A great artist borrows, a terrific artist steals’ – or anything like that,” Paul McCartney described to Guitar Player in 1990. “That helps make the Beatles fantastic artists simply because we stole a ton of stuff.”

Without a doubt, McCartney’s renowned former band is just just 1 of the functions highlighted on our record of 15 Rock Stars Who Admitted to Ripping Off Other Artists. So are a lot of other legendary teams, like Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Nirvana.

In lots of situations, musicians “borrowed” principles from their influences, like Brian Wilson who based a Beach Boys’ strike on a tune formerly developed by Chuck Berry. Still, other entries on our checklist are far further sudden — like the band who ripped off a well-liked industrial jingle, or the group who pilfered element of a nursery rhyme for their international strike. These tales and more can be discovered down under.