The opening to Smells Like Teen Spirit is the same as More Than a Feeling.

The drum fill to open the song copied Burn Rubber by The Gap Band or was it Cities in Dust by Siouxsie and Banshees:



Two great songs.

Nirvana acknowledged so. The question they never answered was were they paying homage or making fun of Boston. More Than a Feeling was such a big commercial hit and Nirvana was trying to be anti-commercial. Of course they found out its tough to have hit songs and be anti making money.

Except it isnt. There is some similarity between the rhythm of the chord changes but the chords aren’t the same. In addition MTAF is in Major and SLTS is in minor.

They are in different keys but that is irrelevant. Using traditional chord numbers we can see that only the first two chords are the same. (And if going from a I to a IV is “the same” likely more than half the songs of the rock era are “the same”.

MTAF: I IV vi V (G C e D)

SLTS: I IV bIII bVI (G C Bb Eb) I used capital Roman numerals as the chords are power chords and the key is really only informed by the harmonic progression and melody. SLTS is in F minor but I transposed the chords to G for comparison.

There is a tritone difference between the third chord in each progression and a half step difference between the fourths chords.

Was Kurt inspired by MTAF, he seems to have indicated that is the case. The chordal rhythm indicates this is likely, but the chords aren’t the same.

You can sing the entiriety of Hey Fightin' Tigers to BJ Thomas's Somebody done somebody wrong song.

It is chord change for chord change, the same.

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There are only so many chords and notes. Most songs use the same 3 or 4 chords . Any combination of G C D equals about a billion songs,

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I always wondered about how that worked with lawsuits and such. At this point, every artist could sue another artist for taking "their sound".

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I always wondered about how that worked with lawsuits and such. At this point, every artist could sue another artist for taking "their sound".

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This is essentially the basis of the "Blurred Lines" lawsuit filed by the estate of Marvin Gaye. The estate, in response to a suit filed by Williams and Thicke, filed a counter-suit "accusing the song's authors of copying the "feel" and "sound" of "Got to Give It Up". They won and received $5.3M in damages and had Gaye's name added to the songwriting credits.

The irony that this case blurred many lines was not lost on songwriters. In the past, it was virtually impossible to win a suit because of a similar, or same, chord progression. (although that changed when Radiohead was sued by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood for the chords to "Creep" being almost precisely the same as "The Air That I Breathe" by The Hollies. The only difference was an added 7th on the B chord in The Hollies song". This got even weirder when Radiohead then sued Lana Del Rey for "Get Free" but Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood didn't...)

People seem to assume that there is some specific metric for infringement suits. It isn't like speeding 85 in a 60. The outcomes have a lot of subjectivity and legal skill. There are two basic things to be shown; that the defendant's work is "substantially similar" and that the defendant had access to hearing the plaintiff's work. This has to be proven to a jury (most commonly) of (usually) musically uneducated people. So they may well be dazzled by a witness or attorney. Or one side is just better at making their argument. Yes, both sides will bring in experts and musicologists but like sports, it often comes down to who performs better during the "game". There is no "you can legally use 4 seconds of a work without issue", it always comes down to who thinks they've been aggrieved and if they believe it is worth the time and expense to pursue litigation.

*hat tip