March 23, 2005

New Saizou: Orange Range Pakuri

i-cover0504.gifIn the new Saizou (technically, Cyzo), there's a story called "〈オレンジレンジ〉今月もパクリ疑惑を徹底検証" - Orange Range: This month we again throughly examine the suspicion of pakuri (melodic-theft) - in which the writer compares melodies from Orange Range songs with those from older hits. There's a lot of "pakuri" in the world of Jpop and Japanese indies, and question is whether no one particularly cares about stealing melodies or whether it's a tolerated evil. Seeing that Saizou is one of the few magazines that "tells it like it is." I would proffer the idea that at least the Japanese educated classes don't think so highly of the practice.
Posted by marxy at March 23, 2005 12:13 AM
Comments

I just picked up this issue today and read that article and was going to ask you if you had seen it.

Posted by: Brad at March 23, 2005 1:01 AM

I would be interested to know who Orange Range have got the melodies from. I'd be even more interested in sharing this info with some people I know.

Posted by: marksound at March 23, 2005 8:56 AM

Brad, if you have the issue, can you write the three examples? I just read the issue in Tsutaya.

Posted by: marxy at March 23, 2005 10:14 AM

I don't think it's really a big deal... All the old rock & roll and blues artists got their music from somewhere else [mainly "black" radio and the blues played there in the 1950's] people like elvis, eric clapton, the rolling stones, and led zepplin got alot of their songs like this. They admit it and yet no ones cares.

Posted by: Tom at March 24, 2005 11:23 AM

At least in the US/UK, you're not supposed to do it, especially when pop music moved away from a White pastiche of Black music. In Japan, it's systematic, and I wouldn't dismiss it too easily until you've heard examples of it. A good example would be, is it cool if Sebadoh started ripping off Tears for Fears note by note?

Posted by: marxy at March 24, 2005 6:49 PM