This is what happens when worlds collide

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1 hour ago, Mirby said:

You can't believe I'm apparently blindly defending Soken while in the same breath appearing to blindly defend Powerman5000. Just pointing that out.

Yes, I can believe that you are blindly defending Soken because you claim that this is an "accident", yet have not provided any reasons why from a musical standpoint. You haven't provided examples of other songs in the genre that use almost exactly the same composition and vocal phrasing and tone as that song and to be honest, I can't really think of any myself. Therefore, it stands to reason it probably wasn't a result of genre characteristics. 

1 hour ago, Mirby said:

Yes, I admit the songs may be similar, but if Powerman 5000 obviously no longer cares about this being stolen and isn't pursuing it, why is it still such a big deal? If anyone should be pissed about this, it's them, and they're not. Not anymore.

So? Apply this logic to anything else and you'll see that this is ridiculous. Sure, Disney blatantly ripped off Kimba, but the studio said they weren't going to sue (because they knew they wouldn't win) so what's the problem? My co-worker stole over 50k from our employer (true story) but they decided not to pursue legal/criminal action, so why is it a big deal?

Stealing is stealing - that's it. It's depressing to me that on a community dedicated to "appreciating video game music and composers" that anyone would have such a blasé attitude about a composer probably stealing from the pop-music realm just because the artist they stole from doesn't care enough to sue.  

[Mirby]

You're looking at this as far too black and white. There's a lot of gray area involved in this situation that is being glossed over. You mention this community, but if stealing is stealing, then fair use doesn't exist and every remix on this site is stealing the notes and tunes of every song they're remixing, even if they're rearranging it. See how I can turn it around if I look at it as a black and white situation, where it either is or isn't stealing? Like I said, there's a lot of gray area involved here.

That said, I'm done with this conversation because I honestly see no point in continuing it.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Fair Use likely won't protect him because he is making commercial profit from the song and he hasn't done anything original to it, Mirb. There are criteria courts use to judge Fair Use, and those are two strikes in the negative.

Verbatim copying ("lifting") has actually successfully been quashed through the law in the past. This is no different. As ACO said before, Marvin Gaye's family won over Blurred Lines, a song that shows less similarity than we're dealing wth right now.

[MindWanderer]

So, I finally listened to these two songs.

Sure, they're very similar, but they're extremely minimalist.  Very basic kick-hat percussion with two alternating chords and simple spoken-verse lyrics.  One could easily come up with something like this without having heard the original.  I often hear songs that are highly reminiscent of other songs where there's no plagiarism going on, and that's with songs that have actual melodies.  Just had one this week in CCoI where wildfire somehow managed to create a remix that "obviously" made use of a song she'd never heard before.

So I'm strongly inclined to believe this is a coincidence.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Let's do this.

This is my transcription of the two verses.

The actual tempo of Worlds Collide is 144 and Sephirot is 140 but I didn't bother with the sheet music. As you can see, the two riffs are essentially the same. The sephirot theme lacks the E note and augments the tonic's eighth note rhythm into complete quarter notes. It is basically the exact same riff and it's already in the same key too. The vocal style and lyrics are extremely similar, same 4 on the floor kick pattern and the synths and bass are both effected in similar ways. 

Here are the two verses together. I couldn't decide if I wanted to have them panned or left alone, so I did both in the same render.

https://app.box.com/s/gd9c1k119kaqrdlduwytf3pxjknu6qbk

If it were just the simple guitars, I wouldn't be so sold, but I believe that Soken knowingly copied the verses of a platinum-selling song. Same key, same riff, same vocal approach, same drums, etc. Let me guess, Robert Cop was a mistake too?

 

[Nabeel Ansari]

I mean... to be perfectly honest that's not much of a riff

[AngelCityOutlaw]

9 minutes ago, Neblix said:

I mean... to be perfectly honest that's not much of a riff

and that's why I said if it was just that, I wouldn't be convince. But it's all the ingredients.

[Nabeel Ansari]

45 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

and that's why I said if it was just that, I wouldn't be convince. But it's all the ingredients.

Agreed.

[Brandon Strader]

P-Man 5K is probably just happy someone is talking about them again, I find this debate interesting regardless of Mr. Spider's comment

Quote

 

Here are the two verses together. I couldn't decide if I wanted to have them panned or left alone, so I did both in the same render.

https://app.box.com/s/gd9c1k119kaqrdlduwytf3pxjknu6qbk

 

HAHAHAHA!!

It's like a cacophony of 90s radiofarts!

[AngelCityOutlaw]

If anything, it just proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Final Fantasy music ain't what it used to be.

[Slimy]

23 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

If anything, it just proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Final Fantasy music ain't what it used to be.

When do you think it all went downhill?

[Brandon Strader]

It ain't the Nobuo Uematsu we know and love, that's fur shure

[yangfeili]

Anyone remember back when they changed the music between the FFVIII demo version and final version due to it supposedly sounding too much like the theme from The Rock?

 

[Cyberdrive]

Its not like this is the first time a Final Fantasy composer has plagiarized.  I present to you, J-E-N-O-V-A:

 

 

[Cyberdrive]

Also see my thread just posted earlier this evening:

 

 

[Senjin]

20 hours ago, Cyberdrive said:

Its not like this is the first time a Final Fantasy composer has plagiarized.  I present to you, J-E-N-O-V-A:

 

 

I... don't hear what you're talking about here at all. Unless you mean they both have a bunch of fast notes playing under a slow melody line? The ending to Blade Runner is hardly the first piece of music to do something like that though. EDIT: Listened through them both again a little more carefully and yeah... No. Blade Runner theme is: C-Bb-Ab-G (or a descending line going Major 2nd, Major 2nd, minor 2nd) J-E-N-O-V-A is: Cb-Bb-Ab, Cb-Bb-Ab-Cb-Db-Eb (or descending minor 2nd, Major 2nd etc.). So no, not plagiarized and I wouldn't even say inspired by, to be honest.

Regarding the original post, I've personally never heard of either songs in question until now (I've lived under a rock for a good majority of my life), but they do sound crazy similar. Like, I'm the kind of person that always gives the benefit of the doubt, but here.... 

I remember seeing an FFXIV panel a bit ago (I think when they were doing something for the recent expansion) and they had a section where the composer came and talked about making the music for the game and kinda messed around with making a track live. All I really remember after watching it is being pretty unimpressed 

The FFXIV's composer is way more successful than me right now though, so what do I know.

[Brandon Strader]

That Blade Runner theme is not really that similar to Jenova, but it does sound like a lot of bands I have heard, from prog death to prog rock and some other stuff.  So..... even if it DID have similarity, there'd be no solid way to pinpoint where the influence actually came from. Coulda been Yes (the band). Or Kansas. Or who knows what the love. Certainly not on par with the clips in the OP!

There's only a bajillion bagillion prog bands that use similar key progressions

 

 

[Kenogu Labz]

On 3/1/2016 at 6:01 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

If anything, it just proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Final Fantasy music ain't what it used to be.

Please listen to the rest of the soundtrack to A Realm Reborn (and some of the carry-overs from the original release), as well as Heavensward.  Then form a full opinion.

The majority of the soundtrack is strongly instrumental with this more metal style only being used in choice scenarios, usually for Primal fights: the classic summons are used in this world as godlike defenders of the world's beast races, and starting with Titan, there are a lot of lyrical metal or electronica songs based around the primal's theme and that of their patron race.  Take, for example, the theme to one of the Alexander fights released recently.

Or, perhaps, try out the first theme I know of in the game that had this tone shift, the five-stage theme to the primal Titan's fight:

All that detail to say: yes, it's a change, but I think it's one that's been implemented tastefully and to excellent tonal effect in the game itself.  Even if you dislike those tracks, the rest of the soundtrack may be more fitting to personal taste.  Or not.  Just don't take a couple of samples and assume it represents the whole, especially when a wide variety is represented in the source.

As to the original topic at hand... yeah, I understand the theft argument.  There is certainly strong similarity in tone, perhaps a nod to the 'Worlds Collide' opening verses, but it diverges fairly strongly after that that.  A tribute, perhaps - and one that should probably be affirmed and recognized by Soken, not denied - but at most just that, a tribute and not outright theft.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

2 hours ago, Kenogu Labz said:

Please listen to the rest of the soundtrack to A Realm Reborn (and some of the carry-overs from the original release), as well as Heavensward.  Then form a full opinion.

The majority of the soundtrack is strongly instrumental with this more metal style only being used in choice scenarios, usually for Primal fights: the classic summons are used in this world as godlike defenders of the world's beast races, and starting with Titan, there are a lot of lyrical metal or electronica songs based around the primal's theme and that of their patron race.  Take, for example, the theme to one of the Alexander fights released recently.

Or, perhaps, try out the first theme I know of in the game that had this tone shift, the five-stage theme to the primal Titan's fight:

All that detail to say: yes, it's a change, but I think it's one that's been implemented tastefully and to excellent tonal effect in the game itself.  Even if you dislike those tracks, the rest of the soundtrack may be more fitting to personal taste.  Or not.  Just don't take a couple of samples and assume it represents the whole, especially when a wide variety is represented in the source.

I am not really a fan of those tracks either. In my opinion, they don't really fit in an MMO game and nothing I've heard off this soundtrack holds a candle to even XIII's music.

2 hours ago, Kenogu Labz said:

As to the original topic at hand... yeah, I understand the theft argument.  There is certainly strong similarity in tone, perhaps a nod to the 'Worlds Collide' opening verses, but it diverges fairly strongly after that that.  A tribute, perhaps - and one that should probably be affirmed and recognized by Soken, not denied - but at most just that, a tribute and not outright theft.

You're free to disagree, of course, but your logic here makes no sense. If it were just a tribute and not theft, there would be no reason to deny ever hearing the song - you would just say, "yeah, it's a tribute". VGM composers have openly admitted to tributes before, actually. Lance Lenhart has said on YouTube in the past that the Twisted Metal III theme was inspired by "Fuel" by Metallica, which it so obviously is.

[djpretzel]

On 2/29/2016 at 5:29 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

If it were just the simple guitars, I wouldn't be so sold, but I believe that Soken knowingly copied the verses of a platinum-selling song. Same key, same riff, same vocal approach, same drums, etc. Let me guess, Robert Cop was a mistake too?

 

ROBERT COP is NEVER a mistake.

Also I love that No. 5 from Short Circuit made the cut for that one; felt very inclusive.

To me, these two tracks do sound as problematically similar as the original Metal Gear Solid theme did relative to Sviridov's "The Winter Road"... more production similarity than compositional in this case, but enough of both...

 

[Kenogu Labz]

17 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

I am not really a fan of those tracks either. In my opinion, they don't really fit in an MMO game and nothing I've heard off this soundtrack holds a candle to even XIII's music.

You're free to disagree, of course, but your logic here makes no sense. If it were just a tribute and not theft, there would be no reason to deny ever hearing the song - you would just say, "yeah, it's a tribute". VGM composers have openly admitted to tributes before, actually. Lance Lenhart has said on YouTube in the past that the Twisted Metal III theme was inspired by "Fuel" by Metallica, which it so obviously is.

It's its own thing.  There are some very memorable tracks, and many not so much.  It's also got a lot more volume than most other FF soundtracks, clocking in at 12+ hours of music for A Realm Reborn and Heavensward (not to mention the tracks reused from the original release), so the goodness has a lot more room to be spread out in.  Overall, it works superbly in the context of the game; it may not fit personal taste, and that's understandable, but it might grow on you a bit when you're in the heat of battle, facing the gradually escalating fight with Titan, or facing a goblin-esque mechanical labyrinth.  It felt weird when I first heard it, but it works out splendidly when used in its context.

As for Soken: agreed, that's the caveat that has me puzzled and unable to fully trust this wasn't stolen.  Even if he hadn't heard the song, it would be in good taste and humility to recognize that there is indeed that similarity there.

[audio fidelity]

I agree that the verse is striking in similarity but thats about it from the track and besides the soundscape there is nothing really identifiably unique to what Powerman 5000 is doing in their track that correlates. The two chords that are strung together in the same key, with the generic boom-tis beat, and ASMR vocals are what makes it striking but none of those are enough to relay infringement. You can hear it as an homage which Yoshida says was the idea but they don't rip off the original besides mimicking the genre. The song's chorus goes in a different direction and they don't mimic any other parts of the song except the verse. The hooks of both tracks are very different from each other and merit separate creativity as far the songwriting is. 

Soken is an amazing talent and while he brings influences from other places he has his own stamp and personality. Kanno is also someone with immense talent that does questionable things like this all the time, but she too is a talent that transcends her work with what she is influenced by. 

[Palpable]

Good god, when I listened to the FF14 track linked in the article, I thought they had overlaid the two songs at first. There's no way two people come up with that amount of similarity independently, though it doesn't have to have been an intentional copy. I know there are times that a song comes to me and it takes me a while to realize that it's an existing song, not something I came up with. But I'm surprised this song went through recording, QA, everything, and nobody noticed (or cared). If "Blurred Lines" was infringement, this would certainly be called that.

[Garpocalypse]

To be fair, it's likely that one of the directors on the team wanted a track similar to PM5000's song and pushed the person who worked on it to near complete plagiarism.  A similar case happened with john williams when doing the first star wars movie.   Lucas wanted to use Holst's The Planets so badly in his movie that williams had to create something as close to that as he could just to get an original score for the film. Of course williams handled it much better.

 

 

[Brandon Strader]

I'm reviving this thread rather than making a new thread. 

Listen to this... something sound familiar? (0;27)

It's been weird that I've known about this theme for a long time, and I've never seen anyone talk about this. (hint: it's fucking elder scrolls haha) Of course this isn't the most iconic theme from FFXV, Somnus probably is, or "Gratia Mundi" (probably not real title) from the Episode Duscae / various, multiple several trailers. But I'd easily put this theme in the top 3 of recognizable themes from FFXV despite it being from... an existing series, but with a few notes changed. 

Thoughts?

For anyone confused about what an "Elder Scroll" is, here's the song I'm talking about: