Plagiarism? Chris Martin on Radiohead

Coldplay are in the news since Dutch guitarist Peter Van Houten sued the band over plagiarism with their hit song ‘Clocks’. Recently frontman Chris Martin even said: “It’s a plagiarist’s paradise. We used to just be able to steal off Radiohead. Now we can steal off everybody.”

But enough about Coldplay, It’s a thin line between plagiarism and coincidence, a part of Radiohead’s new song ‘Reckoner’, which actually doesn’t sound like the song we knew as ‘Reckoner’… but that aside, Belgian radio station Studio Brussel claim there are similarites with ‘La Ritournelle’ recorded by Sebastien Tellier two years ago. Listen to ‘Reckoner’ and ‘La Ritournelle’ and you decide…

[thx StuBru, Joe S.]


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  • Leah

    the songs are similar, but there’s no direct plagiarism here at all, as far as I can see.

  • jeffrey

    reckoner doesnt sound anything like that song it might have the same feeling but thats as far as it goes

  • Autonomia

    No I really don’t think it’s plagiarism. Both songs have alike riffs and the chords sequence Em D C in them I guess. If they would like to steal a song the probably would have done it better.

  • macbethscrazywife

    i don’t see it at all.
    good song though.

  • jack

    it has a similar vibe, but the chords (which is the similarity most people point out) is a simple descending pattern. its probably the most common chord progression ever. (end of arpeggi, all along the watchtower, minds eye(wolfmother) etc, most blonde redhead songs

  • corey Macourek

    i recommend q-tips for people who think they are the same. Chord patterns and drum notes cannot really be copyrighted. Nor can the way someone strums a guiter or plinks some keys. It’s the context for which they reside and are recorded that is copyrighted and registered. Can the collective group of entertainment lawyers get their heads out of the arses or find another line of work with more credibility. Art is resistance. :)

  • http://david-gilbert.co.uk dave

    i dont see a connection here. anyway, radiohead is better

  • Health

    Don’t see much of a connection between these songs.

  • WesleyW

    Some chord progressions – especially in the more abstract chord families – have somewhat predictable, almost mathematical, components. If you hear one chord, there are only so many chords that can follow that would logically and aesthetically fit. I think this is a case of just that – both artists stumbling upon a similar way of using certain pairings and groups of chords.

  • Micah

    first off… radiohead is innocent on this one. neither song is so entirely unique that there aren’t at least 5 other songs that sound at least as familiar to la ritournelle as reckoner does.

    second… what is it called when you plagiarize yourself? i was stunned the first time i heard the speed of sound (or clocks 2 as i call it). i always thought that it was somewhat a code of honor to not release two songs that are essentially identical, unless they retain the same name and are different versions of each other. so if clocks is a van houten rip off, then they got a two for one deal, when they made two songs out of the one. unbelievable

  • Greg

    Mehhhh. Can see it, but not close enough. Regardless, Tellier should be pumped at the publicity from having any kind of affinity to a Radiohead song.

  • Carl

    There’s really not much substance to this at all. Surely it would be better not to give shit stirring like this a platform. It creates ‘controversy’ where there is none.

  • Mark

    Other than the fact that both songs have five-bar phrases… I don’t hear any similarity.

  • macbethscrazywife

    i second carl.

  • Steve

    FUCK YOU RADIOHEAD!!! The one song I truly loved on In Rainbows and I find out that you ripped it off wholesale from another artist! It’s sad to think that Radiohead used to be able to give us an entire album’s worth of material as good as Reckoner; the difference is that they used to be able to ORIGINATE that material & not just steal it! Having said that, I’m amazed that Adriaan had the balls to put this up on the front page– he must really be disappointed with In Rainbows to publicly humiliate Radiohead like this; surely, Adriaan, you MUST realise that this story will now be all over NME.com, Pitchfork, etc in the next few hours. Oh well, I suppose all the boring muso’s who got The Bends Part 2 with In Rainbows won’t care, they’ll be too busy reading Q Magazine to notice this…

  • ErikZ

    Hmmm…speaking of coincidences…I was listening to Tellier’s “La Ritournelle” (fwiw, the link above is a remix that isn’t nearly as good as the original) just days ahead o the release of “In Rainbows” – I immediately took to “Reckoner” (my first favorite track), but similarities. No sir, not happenin’, don’t hear it (and I’ve been listening to Tellier’s track ever since Superpitcher used it to close his “Today” mix disc on Kompakt – i.e., two years). To put it another way: I often hear tracks that sound like other tracks and can, no pun intended, track down the parallel universe pretty quickly. Here? I’m not hearin’ it.

  • http://www.khristopher.com Khristopher

    I don’t hear any similarities at all.

  • Jaimz

    ridiculous. Ice Ice Baby was plagiarism. This? No.

  • ErikZ

    Here is “La Ritournelle” live and the original version (albeit single-length edited – the original is more than seven minutes long). I’ll give you the vacant, loose drums as a distant cousin similarity…maybe…

  • jooley

    no.

    absolutely awful news story, ade.

  • Seth

    Steve,
    do you think Radiohead don’t have that much idea that they need to steal from someone’s song?
    Please turn off your computer, and don’t write these nonsense here.
    Thanks

    Haven’t you heard about that two different people can come up with almost the same ideas maybe at the same time?

  • http://thegrandparade.wordpress.com Gorka

    They don’t have the same chord progression at all…

    Reckoner’s 4th, 4th, then 6th, then 7th
    This is 2nd, 2nd, 5th then 6th

    what the hell are you talking about?

  • http://thegrandparade.wordpress.com Gorka

    Sorry, reckoner’s 4th, 4th, 6th, 5th

  • Seth

    If Thom and co. wouldn’t be able to come up with new ideas, they would put down all instruments… they wouldn’t steal from someone else.

    Ridiculous

  • wrongwrongwrong

    Idiotic. Why did you feel the need to write this nonsense? What an irritating piece of shit-stirring.

  • foie-gras style

    Steve is taking the piss, and I think he’s that dreadful filler fan “jonesd”

    get the fuck off atease jonesd. regardless if you’re steve or not.

  • http://www.ateaseweb.com adriaan

    Please people… don’t take it all too seriously. Really.

  • Andrew

    Actually, Reckoner being in E Minor has a chord sequence of the verse like so:
    i V/III (deceptive cadence) VI i VI

    the other song:

    iv V/III (deceptive cadence) i

    so there is quite the difference.

  • perucho

    Maybe this was done to make that other song popular? Hmm. Anyways, I don’t see it sorry.

  • foie-gras style

    ade, you know NME will “scoop” this.

  • johnyjoe

    Not that big of a coincidence… it’s a jazzy piano riff with a similar chord progression (that isn’t a very uncommon one). I don’t see anything else… so in the end, they’re just two similar songs.

  • Merlin

    Stupid why would Radiohead ripoff others music ?
    Why even doubt that?

  • ugh

    RIPPED-OFF AGAIN, LIFE IS HARD

    http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=ooAvXH_3XQ0

  • http://www.ateaseweb.com adriaan

    hahah. nice one!

  • macbethscrazywife

    putin il est trop bo !!!!!!!!

  • Steve

    Hey, ‘foie-gras style’ (WOW, you sound really ‘hip’ with a name like that): you appear to have great difficulty in accepting ANY criticism of Radiohead without retorting instantly with a pathetic ‘fuck you, get off atease’–style comment. Dude, I have to tell you a few things; 1): what the hell makes you think you have the right to tell ANYONE to get off this website- do you own, run or maintain it? No, didn’t think so. So please- try taking your own advice & shut the hell up. 2): On a PUBLIC forum such as this, people are going to have differing opinions. Guess what? I don’t share the same opinion as you on this matter. Evidently, ‘JonesD’ doesn’t either. Accept this, deal with it, then move on. And again, shut the hell up. 3): Ask yourself just how much ridicule you’d currently be directing against Sebastian Tellier right now if Radiohead had released Reckoner in 2005 and ‘La Ritournelle’ had appeared on October 10th. You’d be laughing your ass off at the guy. Unfortunately for you & all the other idiots who’re terrified of having your little Radiohead bubble burst, he got there first. They ripped him off, accept it. Read it & weep….

  • macbethscrazywife

    they really don’t sound anything alike to me. if i thought they did i would say so.

  • http://www.davidlynch.com __redruM

    Steve is a troll, don’t feed the troll…
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

  • fanchoe

    both songs kick arse btw, I’m only glad it gives Sebastien Tellier a little more visibility, the guy rocks

  • Say What Zammy-O?

    This is an outrage. You could start World War 3 with this kind of shit-stirring. I will not sit here and take this unless you want two fist and one boot up your ass.

    (yum, I’m having chicken noodle soup, much love to all)

  • alan

    they’re both poppy-ish tunes with strings.
    it ends there

  • A

    Thank god the heading changed o_o

  • Harbor

    in a beginning a similair feel – no where near a rip off – and it later goes different places. Very hard to say if there is any intention copy – even on the most subliminal level. I doubt there was an intentional copy. No more than “Got to Get You Into My Life” is a Motown life. Certail less than the Jam – “A Town Called Malice” or “Start.” You know – musicans are listeners, too and will copy grooves cause it just becomes ingrained in them – even on one listening. Certailnly, nothing to get a hard on about.

    Harbor

  • Bones

    jajaja unbelievable people get to
    compare this stuff, they are both
    different songs, with
    similarities, but man…they are
    different, thats quite obvious. Anyways
    there will always be people that want to minimize the creative capacity of artists, and people
    that really appreciates art as it comes, RADIOHEAD already demostrated their creative capacity, weird someone gets to think they now need to steal

  • http://morningsunshineblues.blogspot.com RaisingVenus

    House of Cards could be a My Morning Jacket song.

  • AFarOne

    Good song…
    They are luck to be part of the Radiohead world. But the song is not close enough to it Plagiarism…Give me a break

  • AFarOne

    Good song…
    They are luck to be part of the Radiohead world. But the song is not close enough tocall it Plagiarism…Give me a break

  • Norma Jean

    you know what does sound similar though?
    The beegees “staying alive” and Queen’s
    “another one bites the dust”

  • foie-gras style

    great job steve. not only are u a troll, you fall for your own kind of bait. congratulations.

    and no foie-gras style is not a hip name. in fact it’s pretty much a fanboy move on my part. u figure it out.

    there is no comparison here steve. so yes, please get the fuck off atease. you and jonesd are the only ones i’ve ever told this to and i’m usually a nice poster too… so congratulations on being part of a select few.

    enjoy!

  • Norma Jean

    just kidding. i meant “staying alive”
    and pink floyd’s “another brick in the wall”

  • Otimbar

    What, both have strings? Both singers have high voices? I am enraged by this.

    Also, if plagiarism always turned stuff this shitty into songs as amazing as Reckoner it would be legal.

  • sammy

    fuck all y’all as posted by greenplastic.com
    This “thrashy” new song was first played at the Gorge in George, WA on June 23, 2001. and I have the bootleg to prove it. Radiohead 1 posers nill

  • Bugaboo

    Kind of like How To Disappear and Scott Walker’s Its Raining Today…

  • T

    Radiohead is the greatest band in the world. The most inventive and creative. Why the hell would they steal from a lame pop song? Ridiculous. Also, the article only suggests that the there were some similarities, not that RH stole or vice versa. Calm down everybody.

  • Stinky Beatle

    Doesn’t even come close. There are so many musicians on this earth and so many songs written
    everyday running into similarities is bound to happen. People are really bored.

  • heath

    I’m not hearing any similarities.

  • Mike

    No…

  • mjd180 (continued)

    It’a amazing to me how violent people are reacting to this. First off, no one is saying Radiohead intentionally did anything. Secondly, some of the greatest pop/rock writers of all time have accidentally copied things, they may have heard, into their songs. It happens a lot. It happened to Thom we he finished writing “Creep” in 1992. That is why that song now has two additional songwriters listed as official authors. The bottom line is that nobody knows. We haven’t yet seen the credits for the song, that will come on the discbox (I can’t find the new album’s songs listed on any of the online databases for copyrighted works). For all we know, Tellier’s name may already be in the list of credits for the song. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes.

    I would like to thank adriaan for having the personal integrity of a real journalist, and bringing up this possible big white elephant in the room.

    P.S. – don’t believe everything you read, but don’t ignore everything you read either…you know, just like the NME.

  • http://kellyjwyse.com Kelly

    did someone say “mash-up”?

  • m-dawg

    If I weren’t actively listening for similarities, I don’t think it would ever occur to me to compare the two.

  • m-dawg

    P.S. Chris Martin is a douche.

  • videotape

    what a load of bullshit they sound nothing a like. it was just an excuse to plug shitty belgian music.

  • http://www.myspace.com/soundsvinyl anthony Galaz

    hell yeah it sounds the same, why are so many peopl in denial over this…im not saying they stole or even heard this song before recording reckoner, but it is similar……who cares, good music is good music. its like all you guys have in the world is radiohead none of this matters, they are the greatest and will, i repeat will take over the beatles spot some day.

  • ugh

    if they litteraly took a sample from this song i’m sure the “controversy” (as created by some hipsters) would be lighter. To my ears it seems like ripping a chord progression is quite less alarming than taking a fucking vinyl sample. I don’t see much credits in the liner notes of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing for example, and i can’t remember something controversial surrounding this album… Too indie probably, so typical.

  • Max

    Come on man…..this is real BS! And I like Reckoner better!

  • natiluta

    La Ritournelle (boringggg) where’s the feeling?? not a nice song at all!
    he should be happy if he thinks RADIOHEAD copied this song from him. it sounds like something from the 70′s hhihihihihi

  • Rusty M.

    I like Coldplay, but I was really irritated with Chris Martin when I saw them live a couple years ago precisely because he’s constantly copying off other artists. During their show at Riverbend in Cincinnati in 2005, Chris Martin’s moves onstage were almost carbon copy off Bono — even dancing Bono style in front of a large TV-like screen. Just when I thought he couldn’t possibly rip Bono off more, he runs into the crowd and begins to climb scaffolding (i.e. Bono during their War tour in ’83). Even the guitars on their last album X&Y often sound like The Edge is playing. Another similarity — during their Live 8 performance a few years ago (the follow-up to 1985′s Live Aid) a member of Coldplay wore the same outfit Bono wore during their famous Live Aid performance in ’85. I liked Coldplay better when they were not a U2 tribute band.

  • http://www.christianmack.com gahan

    Ridiculous,
    Reckoner is obviously a (brillant) John Frusciante Rip- Off…

  • pure

    The falsetto’s are completely different. Only the beat progressions are similar. I hope this Sebastien Tellier fellow isn’t going to claim plagiarism, because he’s going to lose.

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  • pierre

    I don’t play any kind of instrument but I hear many similarities (in chords, in drums)… that I think wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t known about these.

    Obviously (anything else would be amazing) Radiohead did not stole the song but it’s scarying to see how Radiohead fans can be such fundamentalists.

  • Leonard

    There are similarites. But it’s only between the drums and the tempo. The strings are there, but the chord progression is too far off. They just descend and ascend the same way.. Personally, I think it’s a HUGE strech. The song actually reminds me of Moby’s “Extreme Ways” more than “Reckoner”.. I don’t know.. It’s a very cool song though.

  • JFlex

    Ade –

    Bad form, man. There’s something called responsible journalism, and this is pure pulpy slush. It’s garbage. A news site shouldn’t propagate nonsense, and no reasonable person would believe Radiohead is guilty of plagiarizing that song.

    I’d urge you to take this article down entirely.

  • Matt

    Um, no? I don’t really hear any similarity
    at all. As someone else mentioned, this
    song actually reminds me a little bit of
    “Extreme Ways” by Moby.

  • karne

    didn’t they do reckoner live in like 2001? at the gorge?

  • Annie

    They are obviously two distinctly different songs. People are probably just hating on Radiohead because they are the biggest thing going right now.

  • Frank Lives

    Bullshit story.

    They don’t sound similar at all, except for the little piano arrangement. big fucking wow.

  • Frank Lives

    OH and besides, Radiohead doesn’t have time to rip shit off from unknowns.

  • karne

    ok, that was a different version of reckoner back in 2001 that i mentioned before…but that doesn’t change the fact that they did not copy tellier and would never need to

  • bendsok

    I have to agree with most of the people commenting on this. I even listened to each piece over the other and I do not think the two songs are really that similar. The repeated guitar chords sound a small amount alike, but not really. Radiohead’s Reckoner is much more dynamic and not annoying unlike Sebastian Tellier’s song. To even bring this up as a credible story is an insult to the greatest band today and for the last 15 years. Radiohead have created music and sounds in the past that other bands could not of even fathomed before they did it, to doubt their talent and integrity is a grave mistake.

  • jooley

    “La Ritournelle” sounds more like a rip-off of Supergrass and Travis.

  • flom k norke

    isnt chris martin dead yet? shame if he isnt

  • Elliot

    Nah, the beat of the chords is the same, but otherwise this is pretty much BS, just someone trying to get some attention.

  • Takatak

    Well, there are some very flimsy similarities…However, I’d venture to say that Reckoner doesn’t sound so…gay. Aah, but people should just get over it – anyone that’s listened to a lot of music or played an instrument in any sort of rudimentary fashion will recognize the chord progression as common place. Again, Radiohead have produced a superior song using a similar chord progression. The other one sounds like it should be used in a car commercial, or as the background music for some new network tv drama.

  • Takatak

    Oh, some clarification – I meant to point out there isn’t more than a single 5-10 second snatch of the song (the ‘rising’ and ‘falling’ progression) that sounds like that other one…Neither song resembles each other in their entirety (Reckoner is way more complicated, time change wise) – and it seems unlikely that Radiohead (or any member of the band) made a concentrated effort to mimic someone else’s sound…I mean, come on. Also, give me ten minutes and I’ll have twenty more examples of this similar progression/dissonant/sad sound in other songs – it pretty much goes back to, well, the beginning of music.

  • melmel

    ive been listening to the two songs since ive heard about this, but i find no similarity. go fix your ears, chris.

  • Dan K.

    good ad for Sebastian though :-) his song is quiet good, however it has nothing to do with reckoner, it just sound similar…so what?

  • Dave

    you can make the same notes 10 different places on guitar, bass, piano..until people start copyrighting notes, then maybe ill hear about music plagiarism.

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  • Clay

    I’m sorry, but I can tell that these are two different songs…. I’ve listened to Reckoner a million times over…. sorry, but I just don’t see it. I also kind of find it hard to just come up with an entirely original song and expect that it’s only happened in your mind and not someone else’s.

  • Jack

    I am just fixing a migraine and started listening to le ritournelle on part of a chilled compilation…it is clear to my ear that it has been used in Radioheads composition… its a piano concerto (Sebastien Tellier???) played on the guitar by someone who also is a pianist by the sounds of it.

    I came across this page as I was stunned and had to check if they had paid him for the rights!!

  • Bob

    Chord progressions and vibes are no basis for a plagiarism case. If you think someone ripped off your song, it needs to have the same chords, instrumentation, arrangement, melody, and riffs. There are only so many chord progressions and “vibes” out there, and it’s very to be COMPLETELY original.

  • Get real guys

    Funny to see everyone on this board unable to admit Radiohead blatantly ripped off La Ritournelle.
    You people are in complete denial.
    It is simply IMPOSSIBLE that Radiohead just came up with Rechoner without having ever heard the French song before. Period. Anyone who has ever produced music would know that.
    Anyway, it’s probably a sort of cover made with the French guy’s knowledge and consent, so no big deal.

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  • jed

    This obviously sounds incredibly similar. I am listening to La ritournelle right now for the first time and I thought “what the heck, this sounds exactly like a radiohead song.” But I didn’t know which one. So I googled “la ritournelle radiohead” and this post came up.

    I am the biggest radiohead fan in the world, but that doesn’t mean this song is not a rip off either intentionally or not.

    Talk about Radiohead partisans being blinded.