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Robbie Williams - plagiarism and copyright


peeriebryan
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I've been compelled to start this thread after becoming enraged by Robbie Williams new single "Rudebox". Regardless of opinion on whether he's a talented performer, he's a plagiarising little turd

 

"Rudebox" is a full scale rip off of Sly & Robbie's 80s semi instrumental "Boops - here to go". Rudebox is based on a sample from Boops, over which Robbie talks disinterestedly, with observational lyrics including "TK Maxx costs less, Jackson looks a mess..."

 

Robbie even sings the Boops chorus in its entirety (the "I have one desire and that's to dance until I drop" part). I'm sure that he's paid and credited Sly & Robbie to use their copyright material, but IMHO, I think its a pretty poor effort on Robbie Williams part. He's basically filled in the instrumental sections of Boops with poor quality "rapping" and released it as a single

 

Robbie Williams has quite a history of "borrowing" large chunks of other peoples work. Here's a few which immediately spring to mind (I'm sure there must be a lot more)

 

    1999 - "Millennium" is based on John Barry's "You Only Live Twice" James Bond theme

    2002 - "Jesus in a Camper Van" ripped off lyrics from Louden Wainwright and Woody Guthrie. He was sued for plagiarism by the copyright owners, had to pay £50,000 in royalties and ordered to remove the song from subsequent releases of the album on which it appeared

    A few days ago - "She's Madonna" co-writer (Rod Stewart's stepson Ashley Hamilton) has instigated legal action, accusing Williams of stealing the song

 

I'm all for artists sampling or quoting sections of music (after all, there are only so many notes and so many ways to arrange them), as long as there is a substancial element of creativity involved in the reinterpretation. But it seems to me that Robbie Williams just regurgitates other peoples texts and spits them out under his own name

 

(I wasn't sure which forum to post this in, and I didn't think Robbie belonged in the 'music' section. Only joking......)

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I had the displeasure of hearing "Rudebox" in its entirety this morning, it's woeful.

 

I think the difference here is that Robbie Williams has a history of not acknowledging the work of other artists as you highlighted, whereas a shedload of other artists have openly acknowledged their use of other artists work...for example, Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up" has been used on 2 songs in the past year or so, namely Rogue Traders "Voodoo Child" and some dance track, the name of which escapes me.

 

If we want to get into the reasons behind the decline of the quality of Mr Williams work, I think it can be tracked back to him deciding he could write stuff on his own and giving Guy Chambers the elbow.

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Wasn't there a similar story about most of Angels being played to Williams by some unknown Irish lad years previous to it's release and him lifting the whole thing? I seem to remember that not much could be proven on the music, so the tooth-and-nail outcome was he eventually got a lyric credit but not a single penny.

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Rudebox is diabolical noise, it makes you come dangerously close to parting company with your most recent meal.... English accents do not rap well, and Robbie's particular accent must be one of the worst of them....

 

That said, is what he's done much different to what rappers have been doing since they gained any popularity, I had the misfortune to hear Wyclef Jean doing We Just Trying To Stay Alive from 9 years ago earlier tonight, and what he'd done with the Bee Gees Stayin' Alive was not a lot different than Robbie's effort, except he has a marginally better rapping voice....just!

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  • 4 weeks later...

On a similar topic.

 

Rogue Traders first UK single was based on Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up".

 

Rogue Traders second UK single is based on The Knack's "My Sharona".

 

Hardly the best way to make an impression on the pop charts. I'll bet that scheming Izzy Hoyland is behind all of this.

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I had the misfortune of hearing rudebox for the second time since its release yesterday, and was having a Victor Meldrew moment by the end of it, well that's not true because i didn't hack it to the end. Filth and rubbish! It's despicable.

 

Some other plagiarist sampling that has been known to get me riled has been the inappropriate use of Gary Numan samples. Sacrilege! 8O

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Rogue Traders first UK single was based on Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up"

Bass Line! Bruce Thomas is probably the 2nd best British bassist. "This years model" (the Elvis Costello album featuring "pPump it up") is a cracker

 

 

But Norman Watt Roy is the man

 

After much research, I've come to the conclusion that "hit me with your rhytm stick" is the best bassline ever played.

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