Discotheque inspired by Stone Roses?

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Mack_Again

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Hi, this is the most random thing i'll probably post about U2. But here it goes.

I recently start digging deeper into Stone Roses' catalogue. it's easy to dig their stuff when there's (technically) 2 studio albums. So in the second album Second Comings ( which i think is a very underrated album. sick beats and classic rock) there is a song called Begging you. Pretty good song, unlike any other from their songs. Kinda make sense to write more Big Beat-esque songs as they (especially Ian) wanted Stone Roses to be beat-orientated. Anyway, i have noticed that that song and U2's discotheque sounds awfully similar. And some sites claims that it's got uncredited samples from Begging you. Did you guys know anything about this? or you guys aren't too into old music from Manchester?
 
I looked it up on youtube and one of the comments suggested U2 ripped it off. I definitely hear a little bit of Disco in it, but Disco goes somewhere at least. There's a beginning, middle, and end. Begging You is decent, but its just the same beat over and over. Not necessarily a bad thing. I dig repetition. Interesting video too.
 
yeah I remember Begging you was written by John Squire who..wasn't too into dance music. his other songs and guitar playing are more like mashup of funk, classic rock/blues and punk. But yeah, as you say, Discotheque only took that song as an "inspiration."
 
It's funny. Listening to a few Stone Roses songs reminded me of how much I used to love Oasis. :wink:
 
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U2 sampled a ton of shit for POP so it wouldn't surprise me.


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Not surprising. They were influenced by the Manchester scene and Stone Roses in 1990 which shows on Achtung Baby.


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yeah I remember Begging you was written by John Squire
It's actually written by Squire and Brown (as are all the songs on the first album, but no others on the second with is otherwise dominated by Squire).

I'm a huge Stone Roses' fan. I've heard every record, obscure outtake, bootleg. I've read every publication on them (and written one). I've seen them live. I hung out with John Squire once at a club.

There's an interview with Mani (bass player for the Roses and later Primal Scream) where they ask him about 'Discotheque', and he says (I'm paraphrasing but I'll try to find the actual quote) he ran into Bono once at some event and put it to him that they had lifted from 'Begging You', and Bono replied with something like, "Well, you steal from wherever you can."

This causes Stone Roses' fans to curse U2 and declare them plagiarists, of course. In reality, Mani likes to tell tall tales and, as we all know, Bono doesn't like to give attitude to fellow artists and tends towards compliance.

I personally don't hear any actual musical point of copy from one song to the other. The riffs that drive each are quite different.
 
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I definitely think that U2 were influenced by The Stone Roses when making Achtung Baby. Haven't heard Begging You but will check that out.

Fools Gold has Reni (who indeed may/must be the best drummer of the last 30 years) playing alongside an reworked "Funky Drummer" sample. U2 started to use that tactic on Achtung Baby with Larry playing along to his own sampled beats, So Cruel and MW are examples of that as far as I can hear.

So I had a go at a Remix that is Fools Gold with parts of Mysterious Ways. It has U2 (sans Larry) in places with Reni drumming (and I like how these 2 songs actually fit :hyper:).
 
https://youtu.be/p2AjpPNDe-8


https://youtu.be/S1Ke19kxGp8

Definitely hear begging you in discotheque , not in the rip off category but you can definitely hear that theve took some inspiration from it

I do some remixing as a hobby and if necessary for proof I could lift out the drumtrack from Discotheque and compare it to Begging You. As a test I have the full tracks (not separeted) lined up and these are eeringly similar..

For the mashups I do I change a lot but this fits like a glove (just a semitone up for Stone Roses). I'll try a quick comparison and if that's interesting I can have a go at a remix between the two :D
 
So I did a quick test mixing the 2 tracks together.. This will sound weird but it's a quick way to determine if there's any "fertile ground" for a remix of the two.

As for the topic question, I think it's very likely that this Stone Roses (drumtrack is buried somewhere in the mix as a (probably sampled). I'm separating the tracks at the moment so can compare the drumtracks. "Funnily" enough the 2 tracks have the exact same tempo (BPM), so there goes.. :D

 
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Begging You is a much better song than Discotheque.

I guess so.. Have separated both songs into stems now and will have a look if the drums were "influenced" by or flat-out nicked from The Stone Roses.

If the latter is the case, I think I should try some sort of mashup between the 2 (like I did with Fools Gold & Mysterious Ways).
 
I guess so.. Have separated both songs into stems now and will have a look if the drums were "influenced" by or flat-out nicked from The Stone Roses.

If the latter is the case, I think I should try some sort of mashup between the 2 (like I did with Fools Gold & Mysterious Ways).

Ok, so I looked at both drum tracks. The BPM is identical and the basic pattern is the same, so I guess the Mani story is true then :D The Stone Roses drumtrack is much louder/prominent though. My guess is that Discotheque (as many songs on Pop) has Larry either playing on top of Reni's sample or that he re-created the sample himself. The latter was a practice they used more often in the 90's to avoid having to clear the copyrights..

I'll see if I can cook up something interesting between the 2 songs if anybody's interested..
 
Had a first try at a Remix/Mashup between the 2. This version has Reni on drums, although there's a segment where both he and Larry drum simultaneously. I have my opinion about the "influence" but hear for yourself.. :D

 
Did a proper Remix with both Larry and Reni's Kick Drums starting at the exact same time. (Larry fades out after 25 secs though)

I guess this could settle the debate about whether Begging You infuenced. Haven't changed Reni's tempo at all and it's just him after Larry fades out. Not sure if @Mack_Again is still here, but here you go for proof.. :D

 
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Oh, and here's Fools Gold with Mysterious Ways which was just a fun idea I had after reading about AB's influences. I don't think there's any direct influence on this one though (MW is a semitone down and made faster to match FG):

 
Oh, and here's Fools Gold with Mysterious Ways which was just a fun idea I had after reading about AB's influences. I don't think there's any direct influence on this one though (MW is a semitone down and made faster to match FG):





Yeah I don’t see that one at all really , two totally different songs
 
Yeah I don’t see that one at all really , two totally different songs

Guess SR were one of the bands of the Madchester scene U2 were watching closely while making AB. Agree with you about the direct influence, had to tune U2 down and sped up for that.

As for Begging You/Discotheque, that's clearly a "stolen" beat. Never had 2 drumtracks that lined up so well (without having to change tempo) :lol:
 
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Guess SR were one of the bands of the Madchester scene U2 were watching closely while making AB. Agree with you about the direct influence, had to tune U2 down and sped up for that.

As for Begging You/Discotheque, that's clearly a "stolen" beat. Never had 2 drumtracks that lined up so well (without having to change tempo) :lol:



Massive influence on them in that era wasn’t they . Was it Bono and Adam that we’re looking to go down that route and edge and Larry wanted to go down more of a classic rock route ? I know Bono was definitely on the madchester side. Nearly caused them to split up .
 
Massive influence on them in that era wasn’t they . Was it Bono and Adam that we’re looking to go down that route and edge and Larry wanted to go down more of a classic rock route ? I know Bono was definitely on the madchester side. Nearly caused them to split up .

@rennowba

In the end everybody's influenced by "The Funky Drummer" :hyper: or at least in hip-hop and madchester late 80's/early 90s.. I found out that this other mashup I did (Seal with George Michael) also uses the Funky Drummer sample (like Fools Gold). So that was definitely a cross-genre influence at the time..
 
Massive influence on them in that era wasn’t they . Was it Bono and Adam that we’re looking to go down that route and edge and Larry wanted to go down more of a classic rock route ? I know Bono was definitely on the madchester side. Nearly caused them to split up .

It was Bono and Edge who wanted to go down that route, Larry and Daniel Lanois wanted to stick with what they knew and Adam was somewhere in the middle.
 
It was Bono and Edge who wanted to go down that route, Larry and Daniel Lanois wanted to stick with what they knew and Adam was somewhere in the middle.



Thanks for clearing that up , I knew there was a divide just couldn’t remember who was on what side . All I could remember was bono was on the madchester side
 
U2 sampled a ton of shit for POP so it wouldn't surprise me.


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While that's true, they also paid a ton for those samples. For anyone to say U2 "ripped off" another artist was incorrect - U2 properly credited and paid other artists (I recall reading all about this in the POP era).
 
Was Adam not going through an industrial music phase at the time citing Nine Inch Nails & Einstürzende Neubauten? I’m sure I remember that from a Propaganda article or something. Madchester was so dominant in the music scene at the time that its not surprising it was influencing their songwriting, especially with some of the amazing bass & drum grooves from bands like Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.
 
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