This illustrates the commercial value (twelve weeks at number one) of stealing from the best.
Talk about whatever.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.
The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
Consistently wrong since 2002
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
lamh36
Doug J, my brotha from another mother. my friends and I were talking about this last week.
Robin Thicke et al had the nerve to claim this wasn’t a sample…Really. Check in at the 1:28 mark and the overlap is BRUTAL.
I hope the Gaye family take him et al to the cleaners.
Shoot and I actually liked Robin Thicke.
different-church-lady
The outgoing mayor of the fair city I live quite near is an idiot.
Doug Milhous J
@lamh36:
I’ll give Thicke this: he does sing well, not just in the studio but live.
different-church-lady
@lamh36: The linked video is a mash-up. Mash ups use bits of both recordings, so it impossible to tell if we’re listening to the original track or the Thicke song anywhere along the line.
ETA: or at least I think it’s a mash-up — I’m
assuming it’s the same one I heard a couple of
weeks ago with the same name, but I can’t confirm
that because I’m sitting in a cafe without headphones
Mart
And I of course read it as “twerk” weeks at No.1…
bemused
I just mixed up Schroedinger’s Cat Watermelon Cooler recipe. It smells so good, I love lime, that it’s going to be tough to wait 24 hours for it to macerate. I just came in from working in the garden and it would have been just the ticket.
Who has google chrome and do you love it or meh?
different-church-lady
Nobody gets the concept of “homage” anymore…
lamh36
@Doug Milhous J: Oh yeah. I love his live performances. Thicke is the real deal, but like a lot of artist who finally get a pop hit (he was mainly stuck on the R&B charts and has a big following in that group), he got cocky and stupid and obviously let the lawyers get in the mix.
This is not a good look in the community that has been the most supportive of Robin Thicke’s work, and that community ain’t the “pop” community. If ya know the history of white artist and R&B music, then you know that this feel like “stealing” and not giving the legend his due.
MazeDancer
Misogynist video sells.
Used to admire Pharrell. Not anymore.
Here is the one and only Marvin doing Got to Give it Up live on Soul Train. As you’ll see, the groove in the mash-up is basically the original.
Doug Milhous J
@lamh36:
I agree.
BD of MN
I didn’t even know Robin Thicke existed until I heard about the Miley Cyrus VMA thing, I watched it with the audio off and went “Hey! Alan Thicke had a kid!”
JPL
@BD of MN: Thank you, thank you. You are not alone since the first time I heard about him was because of the twerk thingy.
Belafon
@MazeDancer:
Considering Pharrell sang on Ludacris’s Money Maker, why did you stop this late?
RP
I don’t see it (or, rather, hear it). It’s obviously an homage and heavily influenced by Gaye’s song, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t think it rises to the level of copyright infringement.
cleek
it ain’t all Thicke, ya know. those other two guys up there share writing credit, and Pharrell produced the song. if there’s uncredited sampling going on, the producer should be the first one you look at.
and there ain’t nothing you can do about “feels like”. note for note copying, sure. “sounds like”? no way.
raven
@MazeDancer: I like the version in La Mission with the low-riders and dancin at the Golden Gate but they took it off of you tube, Still have Stop Look and Listen
Keith G
@lamh36: Is it technically a sample?. Did he take a portion of Marvin’s actual recording and reuse it? I don’t think so. Did he borrow some of Marvin’s ideas? Sounds like it. I am sure we will get a legal decision on this eventually as there is a lot of $$$ on the table and that attracts lawyers.
One of the reasons I never warmed to a certain strand of hip hop was it’s brazen thievery of the artistic work of others.
Belafon
And this is why copyrights should be a lot shorter, like maybe 10 years for music, if that long. I’m curious how Marvin Gaye spends his earnings these days.
raven
Ah, here it is Got to Give it Up.
Doug Milhous J
@BD of MN:
Did you know that Alan wrote the Facts Of Life and Diff’rent Strokes theme songs?
MattR
Can’t remember if I first heard about them via Balloon Juice or not, but A Pathway to Hope dog rescue group is selling T shirts as a fundraiser. The shirts can be made with or without the ‘A Pathway to Hope’ logo and website on the back. I don’t think I have a purple T-shirt in my wardrobe and this looks like the perfect way to finally add one.
flukebucket
@BD of MN: And I thought I was the only one. I was telling my daughter that I remember some guy playing on a TV show that had the last name Thicke and she said, Yeah that is his dad and I thought holy shit how damn old am I!
lamh36
@cleek: The other issue with the whole mess is that the Gaye family said “hey that sounds alot like our fams work”, they did not file suit, they had not gone to court, they just put it out there that the song sounds alot like Gaye’s work.
The reaction from Thicke, Pharell, and TI was a pre-emtive suit to “protect” the song, particularily from the Gaye family (there was another group that claimed some things, but the Gaye fam, IMHO seemed the more obvious case), basically saying “don’t even think about filing suit”.
Not surprisingly that made big news all over R&B and urban radio that “Robin Thicke Suing Gaye Family” and people have been talking ever since and Thicke is not being spoken of in a good light.
Like I said upthread, his most supportive fan base is the urban R&B, Hip/Hop crowd. He’s already been competing against Justin Timberlake for that crowd, and he’s been sorta winning big. this whole thing though is NOT a good look for him with that group and this is the group he’s gonna have to fall back on if he doesn’t have another pop hit.
ETA: @Keith G: not a sample, but if you read my bit above, you’ll see that the whole situation could have been handled way better than the way it has been so far. Before the suit, Thicke was quoted all over the web in interview after interview talking about how he wanted a Marvin Gaye “Gotta Give It Up” vibe or how he and the producers listened to alot of Marvin Gaye like “Gotta Give It Up”. But after the suit, it was like “what are you talking about” it’s not inspired by “Gotta Give It Up” at all.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
IIRC, it doesn’t have to be a straight-up sample — Coldplay had to pay off Joe Satriani because they used a melody that was almost identical to his, though Coldplay claimed that they had come up with it independently.
It was pretty ballsy of Thicke (via his lawyers) to pre-emptively sue the Gaye estate. Because, what, Marvin Gaye had a time machine and traveled forward in time to steal Thicke’s work?
cleek
regime change, bitches.
Chat Noir
@JPL: Same with me.
Suffern ACE
@cleek: Yep. So can we argue that if changing the moment on the battlefield won’t lead to democracy, we need to wait for a better time?
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: The preemptive suit was an asshole move. It would have been easier, probably cheaper, and a great PR move to have said “Holy shit, we were listening to a lot of Marvin while working on this, and it must leaked in. We are going to give him a writing credit and toss some of the songwriting royalties to his heirs.”
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
Sooo, could a Democrat filibuster the bill so the Republicans are forced to round up 60 votes for it to pass?
Enquiring minds want to know.
ETA: I can’t help thinking that the 11-D chess part of this is, See, I told you these fuckers couldn’t find their asses with a map and a flashlight.
schrodinger's cat
@bemused: You can have it now, but it will taste better if you allow all the flavors to blend.
Roger Moore
@cleek:
Something tells me that Obama is going to pay about as much attention to this “non-binding Statement of Policy” as it deserves.
Keith G
Speaking of great original music by a singer song writer, my current crush is Tom Odell. I got to see him as he swung through Houston last month. A sweet guy. After rocking out and playing his heart out in a very intimate setting, he came out and hung with those of us who stayed behind – having drinks and swapping stories. A great kid.
Just a bit earlier than that, he had played on Letterman
No need for sampling when you can do this!
Belafon
@cleek: So, Obama announces that he cannot bomb because it’s the freakin’ Middle East, and there’s no way we can cause a Democratic government.
The McCain amendments will pretty much cause exactly the opposite of what he thinks can be achieved.
As someone who supports this, I only think our goal is damaging their chemical weapons capabilities and scaring them or anyone else out of using them again. We cannot make a democracy.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: I went and looked up the issue, and Thicke offered some six figure number, which the Gaye family turned down. That’s what led to the preemptive lawsuit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon: Interesting.
Anoniminous
@cleek:
Thank You Senator McCain!*
I don’t see that passing the House.
ETA:
* something I never thought I’d find myself writing
MazeDancer
@Belafon:
Laughing. Very good point. Had repressed that since never got past 12 seconds with either the song or vid.
Am not a Pharrell devotee, so not fully familiar with his work. And I am not against homage. Here’s an MJ homage Pharrell produced for a tune he wrote with Adam Lambert. (Good cowbell starts at :31)
Am totally against misogynist videos of completely clothed men dancing around with totally naked women just to stir up interest in their pop record. Thicke has even gone so far as to say it can’t be exploitative because both he and Pharrell are married.
Now I recognize many, if not most, music videos – like that Ludicrous ludicrousity Belafon mentioned – are extremely misogynistic. But Blurred Lines was unnecessarily so.
They knew exactly what they were doing. And it was wrong.
And as much as I did not enjoy Miley – who has her own big set of problems – doing her tongue wiggling twerking with Thicke on TV, I admired her calling him on his Sex King hooey : If it’s fine for fully clothed men to dance with naked women to sell records, then what’s wrong with twerking with bathing-suit clothed, legal-aged females on cable TV, Robin?.
Thicke was caught between knowing it would look like child exploitation and how allegedly sexy he’s supposed to be.
Of course, the “controversy” was about Miley, not the creepy man creeping on her.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus: That is essentially what Rush did with 2112. I remember reading an interview with Neil Peart talking about how their third album was panned and the record company was trying to shoehorn them back into mainstream rock and they felt like their individualism was under attack and that led them to the concept behind 2112. I can’t find the original source so I will have to fall back with this unsourced bit on WIklipedia “Peart has said that although he had read Anthem, he was not consciously thinking of the story when he wrote the song; however when the similarities were pointed out, he realized that there must have been some unconscious influence, and gave credit to “the genius of Ayn Rand” in the liner notes.”
Keith G
@Belafon: So you are saying that there is more to the story than some here are indicating. Imagine that!
hoodie
@cleek: I assume “non-binding” means non-binding and, anyway, there is wiggle room to spare in that statement. What are they gonna do if he doesn’t abide by the policy? Impeach him for not getting us into a war that the public doesn’t want? That was a fig leaf for Walnuts.
lamh36
@Belafon: @Omnes Omnibus:
I saw that article too. That’s why I’m thinking that it’s not about the money with the Gaye family. I think it goes back to white artist, particurlary during Gaye’s time stealing Black artist work and releasing them as their own.
Putting on my fake psych-hat, I’d also say it really sticks in one’s craw that someone who’s career you may have supported when others didn’t, now gets a little taste of the other side and not only doesn’t he publicly give you the recognition you the legend deserves, he instead decides to just throw money at you (cause he knows that the merits are on your side) and when you say it’s not about the money, they sue you and decide to hardball ya.
Taking my psych-hat off now…still the only people coming out looking bad in this whole mess is Thicke et a. Like I said, the crowd that Thicke is sorta pissing off, is the crowd that he will have to go back too if/when the pop life ends.
It’s gonna be up to the courts then.
Xantar
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not what happened, though. There’s a perfectly legitimate legal mechanism which Thicke and his lawyers are using. In general, if somebody is repeatedly saying, “I’m gonna sue you” but doesn’t actually do it, you might decide you don’t want to put up with the uncertainty and just want to get it over with. You would then file a lawsuit and ask the court to determine whether you are actually liable. That’s what Thicke did. I’m not saying Marvin Gaye’s estate was being a nuisance, just that Thicke and his lawyers apparently decided to just lay it all out in court. Since Thicke is the one who initiated this proceeding, he is technically the plaintiff even though he’s taking a defensive action.
Thicke is hoping that the court rules that he’s not liable and that will be the end of that. However, it’s possible that the court will rule against him and actually find that he infringed on a copyright. In other words, even though Thicke is the one suing the Gaye estate, he may end up being the one who loses and has to pay money. The whole purpose of this action is just to get the court involved to early and clarify who really owes who. It may be bad PR for Thicke, but it’s perfectly legitimate.
On another note, I’ve never understood how Blurred Lines got so big. It’s got a nice, smooth feel, but it’s so formless compared to other mega hits of the past. Is it honestly as catchy as Call Me Maybe, Gangnam Style, California Girls, or Rolling in the Deep?
ranchandsyrup
I don’t dispute what y’all say about Pharrell. I just want to note that he owned this summer (even with the attempted twerk-jacking by Miley) with Get Lucky and Blurred Lines.
schrodinger's cat
I must be dense because I have no idea who Thicke is.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: That is one of the reasons I think that the acknowledgment and writing credit were at least as important as the money.
Schlemizel
Funny, I was just having an email conversation with Puke of Puke & Snot fame.He happens to be friends with Penn & Teller. He recounted a story where Penn saw someone doing his act, word for word, trick for trick. Penn went to the show owner and offered two weeks of his shows for free if he would fire the guy right then & tell others not to hire him.
Sometimes stealing from the best is not a bright idea
lamh36
@Xantar: I can tell you antecdotally, that a big reason it was such a hit for my peeps, it was because old and young recognized the “Got To Give It Up” vibe of it. When the whole lawsuit news came out, everyone I know to a tee’s reaction was “wait, I been thought it was just like that Marvin Gaye song”.
DFH no.6
I’m on the “homage” side here. And I’m with Belafon on shorter copyright periods, too.
Sorry to hear Thicke pre-emptively sued, whatever the justification (or not).
Still love the song, though, and the misogynist video (“uncensored” version particularly). So does my wife of 35 years (it’s become her summer earworm that she calls “our song” now).
Robin Thicke’s got it all: looks, talent, money, fame, and a big dick (so the sign says). Good for him. Maybe in my next life…
lamh36
Case in my favor on who Robin Thicke is gonna piss off most with this whole thing…half of ya’ll had no idea who Robin Thicke was before “Blurred Lines” and before the MTV VMAs.
Ask any R&B, Hip/Hop, Urban radio fan or listener who Robin Thicke was and you’ll hear recognition from all of them.
How many of ya’ll have even heard of the “Real Husbands of Hollywood”? Robin Thicke was a big hit on that show. (He’s leaving the show now, but being replaced by Chris Rock, so no loss there)
bemused
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, I can wait for the full flavor but I just might have just a teeny, tiny sip after dinner.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Page should have done that with Jake Holmes.
Keith G
@Belafon: I get the sense that there is a greater concern than just the horrific deaths of innocents by once and future gas attacks. An al Asad led war on the Sunni population of Syria is bad enough and has significant strategic implications for the entire levant and north to Turkey. Add the increasing use of neurotoxin gas as an offensive weapon, and instability gets stacked upon instability.
I am willing to imagine that there are those in Obama’s NSC who do’t give a fuck about Syria or Syrians, but they do give a very big fuck about Jordan. For good or ill, they are trying to find some cap to the upward spiral of violence.
The increasing refugee problem alone is an issue that can destabilize friendly governments.
There is so much shit in this sandwich.
BD of MN
@Doug Milhous J:
I have already laid out my lack of current pop cultural awareness, must you now expose my lack of 80’s pop culture awareness, also too?
Betty Cracker
@Doug Milhous J: Then he’ll eventually roast in hell for all eternity.
Old Dan and Little Ann
If a person does not know about Alan Thicke or “Growing Pains” then they missed out on Boner. What a pity.
DFH no.6
@Xantar:
Much catchier than Call Me Maybe, Rolling in the Deep, or (good God!) Gangnam Style.
On par with California Girls, I’d say.
Catchier even than the other fun summer ’13 pop hit, Daft Punk’s Get Lucky (also with Pharrell Williams, as ranchandsyrup indicated).
YMMV, obviously, but I enjoy the hell out of Blurred Lines (even after repeated listenings).
Botsplainer
Holy shit. This garbage may be having an effect internationally.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/04/20328519-when-unhinged-conspiracy-theories-become-self-defeating?lite
Then:
The problem in a nutshell is that these congressdorks have staffs that apparently get their news from Free Republic comment threads.
Doug Milhous J
@DFH no.6:
I think it’s the catchiest summer song since R. Kelly’s Ignition.
lamh36
ok, so I watched Luther last night and I didn’t go to sleep until after midnight. Welp, I woke up this morning and I was aleady 30 mins late for work!!! Thank goodness I live only 10 mins from work. So no Luther tonight, although I’ll be recording it for the rest of the week!
lamh36
@Doug Milhous J: I agree, it’s catchy as hell. The video brought it attention I guess, but the song itself is worth the radio airplay it gets.
I like it a lot, it’s why this whole drama is so stupid and frustrating. I still love this song, but I’m bout ready to trade Thicke (and take Timberlake too) for Jon B and a Zombie Teena Marie (RIP Lady T) ala Chappelle Show “Racial Draft”…lol.
ETA: Scratch that, the Lady T already belongs to us, I’ll take Micheal McDonald, loved him since his Patti Labelle “On My Own” duet.
http://youtu.be/KsH63qJlIMM
chopper
@Botsplainer:
oh, christ. (pinches bridge of nose)
Felonius Monk
For those who are avidly watching Chemical Warfare Theater there is this:
Get the whole thing here and more at NYT
Doug Milhous J
@lamh36:
As long as you hang on to Bobby Caldwell.
henqiguai
@lamh36 (#47):
Yeah, not a hip hop or pop fan, but really got into Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” *because* it was straight-up Marvin Gaye “Got to Give It Up”. Then the whole law suit thing and my forever disdain; ’cause I really do remember all of the outright theft (not “appropriation”, no; too p*ssy for what was done) by white artists of black artists’ work.
But then again, I have never denied that I have a bad attitude…
lamh36
@Doug Milhous J: ok, I was gonna ask for Bobby Caldwell, but don’t know who to trade him for…it’s slim pickin’s on the other side…lol
Ok, we’ll take Bobby Caldwell and add in Boz Scraggs and ya’ll can have ummmm…Chris Brown and ummmm Kayne West. I can do without em.
Boz Scraggs – Lowdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65EoK4OelZU
lamh36
@Doug Milhous J: Oh and I’ll forever love Michael McDonald for his contribution to one of my fav hip hop songs ever…RIP Nate Dogg.
Thanks Mike McD:
I Keep Forgetting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjqOsYRQI0o
gogol's wife
@lamh36:
I have never seen that show, but I read last night in the NYTimes that one of the plot lines is going to be about the murder of an internet troll.
This I found quite intriguing.
ranchandsyrup
My favorite summer song is still Steal My Sunshine by Len in 1999. That sentence is so white it is blinding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1fzJ_AYajA
gogol's wife
@lamh36:
I guess the article says “death,” not “murder.” Oh well.
“Luther and Ripley are assigned a pair of cases, the larger involving a woman murdered in a way that evokes an earlier series of killings and the lesser concerning the death of an Internet troll.”
lamh36
@gogol’s wife: I’ve been hawking the show since i saw the first and second season. You’d think I was getting paid for it…lol. But I genuinely like it.
The first 2 season are on Netflix (only 10 eps total). you don’t have to watch them to watch the new episodes, but IMHO I think it kinda helps
lamh36
@gogol’s wife: well ultimately we realize the internet troll was murdered, but its the actions of the alleged killer in this case that had #Luther trending on twitter last night…lol
Omnes Omnibus
@ranchandsyrup: I hated that song then and I hate it now.
ranchandsyrup
@Omnes Omnibus: Summer songs are like Tebow–love them or hate them.
I was just googling what in the hell happened to that band and found out that Brandon from Broken Social Scene was in that band for a while. Weird.
MazeDancer
@raven:
Bouncy low-rider definitely hits the groove!
ranchandsyrup
Y’all prolly talked about this elsewhere, but the developer of ghettotracker.com is a moran. Doubly so because he rebranded it as “The Good Part of Town” and then was further surprised that the reaction was still negative. http://gawker.com/creator-of-ghettotracker-com-surprised-by-all-the-nega-1249859432
DFH no.6
@Doug Milhous J: For me Blurred Lines is the catchiest summer song since Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz in ’05.
Was on my favorite advertisement for the I-Pod (one of the earliest, I think).
Worked on me — I went out and bought my first one.
Still love Feel Good Inc (well, and just about anything by Gorillaz).
gogol's wife
@lamh36:
I guess I thought that plotline reflected some of the themes that have emerged on Balloon Juice lately . . .
Omnes Omnibus
@DFH no.6: Now that one I like.
Doug Milhous J
@lamh36:
I Keep Forgetting is indeed one of the highpoints of white R&B. Great vocals, great riff, and great bridge.
Ted & Hellen
It’s not a “steal.” You can’t steal a vibe, which is not something written down on paper.
You can be inspired by other work and seek to write a new work with a respectful nod to the original, which is what I hear in this case.
Ted & Hellen
@lamh36:
Grifting.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat: What you did there.
lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Felonius Monk
Will we as a country be doing this shit forever (via):
This apparently occurred prior to the CW attack. The Jerusalem Post has a more complete discussion.
I’m sure this will go well.
Ted & Hellen
@lojasmo:
Get help.
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Late to the thread, but I will say that I knew who Robin Thicke was and have even watched Real Husbands, though not religiously. Don’t know if it’s an ongoing joke, but there was a hilarious bit where Thicke “blacked out” and turned into a raging black Hulk version of himself.
This is kind of reminding me how white-o-centric the Balloon Juice music milieu (sometimes) seems to be. Lots of music nerds who can run down every Chicago post-punk band of the mid-’80s, but then “Robin Thicke—who?” I didn’t think he was that obscure.
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Maybe pick up Remy Shand for a draft pick later?
Also, there’s another guy who had a great straight-up neo/retro soul album a few years ago, but I cannot think of his name to save my life right now.
fuckwit
@Felonius Monk: Fuck. Here we go again, arming our future fucking enemies and training them to fuck with us later, just as we trained the Mujadeeen and Bin Laden in Afghanistan, so he could attack us later. Fucking stupid shit.
Anyway, that Marvin Gaye song was done as a joke. He hated disco. Motown kept pressuring him to make a disco song. Finally he gave in, so he got the band together in the studio, rolled the tape, and laid down this decidedly-more-funky-than-disco groove, with stupid disco lyrics about DANCING, no politics, no social commentary, just DANCE DANCE DANCE which was the fucking mental level of disco at the time. Then he overdubbed party sounds, since he liked those (dating back to and with great effect in What’s Going On). And it was a huge hit, and he got the record label out of his face for a while.
Chuck
@MazeDancer:
That seems a bit silly considering the video for “Lapdance,” which was made by the same director and is arguably way more offensive, came out in 2001. (Not condoning either)
Separately, the preventative lawsuit seems like a really easy way to clear up any perceived infringement, especially if the Gaye estate was making hostile noise. You don’t want to end up with a Men at Work situation.