One morning, Joe Satriani woke up to 40 text messages on his cell phone. After scrolling through 40 variations of “holy schet u got ripped off,” Joe texted back his good friend (whose Internet name is Fuzzyslippers621) the following reply: “wot d feck R U talkin bout?” This went back and forth for about 15 minutes until Joe realized his cell phone was actually a phone. So he called Fuzzyslippers621 and asked in regular English, “What the fuck are you talking about?” To which his friend replied, “Haven’t you heard the new Coldplay song?” He had not, but after launching his Limewire program, he downloaded an illegal copy, waited for his iTunes player to play it, and lathered up his head for his morning shave.
The opening strains of the song were interesting, but he had no idea what all this “ripping off” business was, until …
He was stunned. There it was. An unabashedly plagiarized portion of a song he wrote years before. “How could this be?” He wondered as he carefully glided the Gillete “Fusion” razor over his grizzled pate. The more his listened to “Viva La Vida,” the angrier he got. Beads of shaving cream-infused sweat started rolling off his head. Furiously, he texted his lawyer the following message: “I wnt 2 sue.”
And so began the story of one artist’s quest to right the wrongs that had, uh, wronged … him. Right.
Joe Satriani’s claim may have merit, but if he does win in court, lawyers for artists whose work has been the inspiration for other songs that sound uncannily like the original are going to have work after listening to this mix.
My Popdose colleague Matthew Bolin started a back and forth about Satriani’s lawsuit against Coldplay, and me being the opportunist I am, decided to float a Mix Six idea I had been thinking about for a few weeks. Jeff Giles, Scott Malchus and Michael Fortes all contributed suggestions to this mix, so with that, let’s get started! (more…)
