"People are fed up with us and so are we"

[kingofsorrow]

personally i'm not arguing u2's uniqueness. all i'm saying is get a fucking life people. let coldplay be. would it better if they decided to "rip-off" some talentless, useless, wallpaper music making band? seriously. shut your wacket holes and enjoy the fact that they've decided to "copy' a worthwhile band, even if it is to point of appearing to be plagiarism.

 

[derrick_rossign]

Re: Re: "People are fed up with us and so are we"

Just because I'm bored I'm going to take your post sort of seriously...

took the words out of my mouth.

 

[Diemen]

I totally don't understand why anyone is all bent out of shape about anything involving Coldplay.

I mean, really???

Word.

 

[kingofsorrow]

For the folks that are ironically arguing that «ohhh, and U2 never borrowed anything from anyone,nah...»,

that's because of the mindless idiots hollering "rip-off", "plagiarism", "imitation" and a host of other useless nonsense.
coldplay is a unique band, a little effeminate, but still unique.
i suggest you look at early interviews of u2, every word out of bono's mouth echoed that of other established artists' who abhorred the direction music was taking.

 

[Aygo]

that's because of the mindless idiots hollering "rip-off", "plagiarism", "imitation" and a host of other useless nonsense.
coldplay is a unique band, a little effeminate, but still unique.
i suggest you look at early interviews of u2, every word out of bono's mouth echoed that of other established artists' who abhorred the direction music was taking.

I do not agree. Today, 2008, the world is plenty of bands (specially british bands, although some american bands have already started to follow their path) that have the sound and the attitude/posture of Coldplay. Coldplay are not unique anymore. Even as a live act: they're good but not great and they're equal to many others.

How many bands do you know that were passible of being easily confused with U2 (whether the decade: 80s, 90s, 00s) in all these 30 years?

 

[Addicted To Bad]

 

[blueeyedgirl]

I do not agree. Today, 2008, the world is plenty of bands (specially british bands, although some american bands have already started to follow their path) that have the sound and the attitude/posture of Coldplay. Coldplay are not unique anymore. Even as a live act: they're good but not great and they're equal to many others.

How many bands do you know that were passible of being easily confused with U2 (whether the decade: 80s, 90s, 00s) in all these 30 years?

Television. Go listen to Marquee Moon. And as Gibson Girl already said, Echo and the Bunnymen. Back in the early 80s (possibly before your time, I don't know how old you are) they were considered inferior to the Bunnymen.

 

[kingofsorrow]

I do not agree. Today, 2008, the world is plenty of bands (specially british bands, although some american bands have already started to follow their path) that have the sound and the attitude/posture of Coldplay. Coldplay are not unique anymore. Even as a live act: they're good but not great and they're equal to many others.

How many bands do you know that were passible of being easily confused with U2 (whether the decade: 80s, 90s, 00s) in all these 30 years?

disagree all you want. there is nothing unique/new/never been done about u2 and the same goes for coldplay.
and there are plenty bands out there that imitate the the egde's ringing/chiming guitar sound( gin blossoms, coldplay, radioshack, and a whole bunch of alternative bands, as well as bono's incessant religious/saintly/love-save the world pandering( scott stapp, eddie vedder,).

 

[blueeyedgirl]

No, because the internet wasn't around, and it takes way too much time and energy to do your griping via snail mail.

Letters pages in the NME. I miss them

 

[kingofsorrow]

Television. Go listen to Marquee Moon. And as Gibson Girl already said, Echo and the Bunnymen. Back in the early 80s (possibly before your time, I don't know how old you are) they were considered inferior to the Bunnymen.

thank you. people seem to forget u2 admire and aspire to be like these bands.

 

[gvox]

It's PLAGIATE, people, come on!

Don't you know plagiation? It's the action of plagiating.

 

[the tourist]

 

[Earnie Shavers]

«A man builds a city with banks and cathedrals»
The idea is not the same, but the game with these two words is already there.

Writers consciously or subconsciously lift stuff from heroes/influences all the time. It's really not a big deal, particularly an example as wildly loose as the example above.

If you don't think Bono does it, and does it a lot, then it probably just means you just haven't stumbled across or been paying attention to the kind of stuff he lifts from. Either whole passages, phrases, ideas, the shifts in the style of his writing in line with shifts in interests... Examples are everywhere, tiny and large.

 

[angelordevil]

Not that inspiration is really anything to feel guilty about in the first place. There are very few artists out there who have produced anything that is truly unique. It's only wrong when it's outright plagiarism.

Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief...


As for Coldplay, I'm not a massive fan, but I think the new song is perhaps the most interesting/different thing they've done so far...it reminds me of...

 

[Rosebud]

I don't think anyone here, no matter what position they're arguing, really thinks that good bands can't be at all influenced by other bands, artists, poets, etc. which they admire. The fundamental question to me seems to be whether a particular band (in this case Coldplay) *wants* to be follow their own way and be original in some way of another. The boys from U2 talk all the time about great bands or artists they love and were being influenced by at the time they were making "X", but they've also said that while they love many bands, they don't want to sound like any of them -- they didn't want to imitate anybody. They've spoken very explicitly about this, and it's been this way since they recorded U2:3. I think this is the important thing - that they at least have the desire to create something unique (which is kinda how you make a contrabution to musical culture). The question is not how much Colplay love U2 or admire them or hold them as idols, or even whether they've been influenced by them, but whether or not at the end of the day they actually want to be unique or just ride U2's coattails. I really have no idea, and kind of don't care when all said and done, but that's what I think the important question to be asking is.

 

[cobl04]

buttplug

look, can you tell me where i can get one of these?

 

[Rich79]

I keep hearing things like "It's not like U2 never copied off anyone"...yet, I haven't seen one example of how they did or who they've copied off of. I sure can't come up with one, myself. I could list their "inspirations", but not anybody/anything they have so obviously stole an idea from.

 

[xaviMF22]

I keep hearing things like "It's not like U2 never copied off anyone"...yet, I haven't seen one example of how they did or who they've copied off of. I sure can't come up with one, myself. I could list their "inspirations", but not anybody/anything they have so obviously stole an idea from.

what about when they played on the rooftop?

I can think of another band who did that first

 

[gvox]

I vote this thread: "Most likely to cause me to say something that will get me banned"


Therefore, I'm

 

[Diemen]

I keep hearing things like "It's not like U2 never copied off anyone"...yet, I haven't seen one example of how they did or who they've copied off of. I sure can't come up with one, myself. I could list their "inspirations", but not anybody/anything they have so obviously stole an idea from.

Look at the Bukowski book above. That alone proves you wrong.

U2 themselves have even admitted to passing off Ramones songs as their own when they were looking for record deals. That's not just lifting ideas, that's playing someone else's entire song and calling it your own. Can't say that Coldplay have done anything that bold.

 

[gvox]

U2 themselves have even admitted to passing off Ramones songs as their own when they were looking for record deals.

Not that I agree with anything anyone in this thread is saying

but...wasn't that sortof self-depreciating humour ie they were trying to be a ramones cover band and they figured that if they played a rare enough ramones track badly enough, ppl wouldnt recognize it and just assume it was theirs? that was how i took that, but then again i've taken quite a few things

 

[ahittle]

I've got no problem with Coldplay. I quite like a few of their songs and nearly all of the second record. If Eno can help them make a great record, I'm all for it.

They aren't there yet. But I'd like them to be great, if that makes any sense. Not to replace U2, but just to be great. I don't think they've done it yet, but they've got some good ingredients. Nothing wrong with a band easing into a career - it's pretty rare these days!

 

[U2girl]

My impression was the contest jury just assumed U2 was playing their own song. They never claimed they wrote Ramones' stuff.

 

[xaviMF22]

U2 themselves have even admitted to passing off Ramones songs as their own when they were looking for record deals. That's not just lifting ideas, that's playing someone else's entire song and calling it your own. Can't say that Coldplay have done anything that bold.

did that really happen?

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

did that really happen?

Bono has said it in several interviews and I believe it's in U2 By U2 as well...

 

[BoMac]

did that really happen?

If I recall this was mentioned in the Flanagan book. And from what I remember, I think it was intentional, in the sense that they were hoping no one would notice, because they desperately wanted to win that TV contest.

 

[xaviMF22]

Bono has said it in several interviews and I believe it's in U2 By U2 as well...

I know Chris Martin & Co..would never stoop that low

 

[Addicted To Bad]

It's PLAGIATE, people, come on!

PLAGIATE ??.... oh..no...!!!!


( Hi !! edurban )

 

[gvox]

If I recall this was mentioned in the Flanagan book. And from what I remember, I think it was intentional, in the sense that they were hoping no one would notice, because they desperately wanted to win that TV contest.

I need to look this up again...it won't make me lose sleep or anything but my recollection was that they invited someone over to listen to them practice and see what he thought of their stuff, and even he knew they were playing crappy covers and told them to do their own thing...didn't they actually take their own song to that TV contest, ultimately?

 

[Popmartijn]

If I recall this was mentioned in the Flanagan book. And from what I remember, I think it was intentional, in the sense that they were hoping no one would notice, because they desperately wanted to win that TV contest.

I don't think they played those songs in a contest, but just to get on TV, period. I couldn't easily find it in Flanagan's book (though I'm almost certain it's in there, as I've read the story quite a few times), but here's a link to Bono's eulogy to Joey Ramone as it appeared in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,107223,00.html

At one of our rehearsals, we were visited by a big-shot TV director who was going to give us a break on the national airwaves. We'd been fighting in our garage about how our own songs should end, or start or even what middles they should have when this TV director was coming to see us, so we played him two Ramones songs when he arrived and told him they were ours, and he thought this was amazing.

I think that might've been for the show on October 5, 1979 in Cork, which was their début on national television. They ended that show with the Ramones song Glad To See You Go.
(And oh, just for reference, this show was about 1 month after U2:Three had come out, so it wasn't as if they didn't have any recordings yet...)