Yoko Kanno (& Plagiarism)

[zlink64]

Apperantly music from bebop by Yoko Kanno is possibly plagiarized.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cowboybebop/co ... _thoughts/

They have links so you can listen and compare.

[esselfortium]

Yes, a lot of her music is plagiarized. It sucks, but its also old news at this point and I'm used to it. I can still appreciate and enjoy the music even though I don't have nearly as much respect for her as an artist as I did when I first heard her work.

The DJ Food comparison at the linked page is a questionable case because DJ Food actually contributed a remix to one of the Bebop OSTs.

In comparison posts and videos online, the numerous very clear cases of Yoko Kanno's plagiarism are often diluted with flimsier comparisons involving songs that just have some similar basic basic chord progressions or borrowed similar elements that are used as pieces of very different songs, but there are enough of the former that the latter aren't really an excuse here.

The track being compared with The Real Folk Blues at your link was undoubtedly the direct inspiration for it, but melodically it's a different enough piece that uses some similar instrumentation. It's not unusual for soundtracks to begin with the director having already selected "temp tracks" to suggest the type of mood they want for each scene, and so sometimes these can lead to this kind of similarity in the finished result.

With that said, Yoko Kanno has taken songs in their entirety in numerous cases. "Want It All Back" as a nearly note for note replica of "Zodiac Sign" by Imperial Drag is one of the most clear-cut examples. "Bad Dog No Biscuits" as a variant of Tom Waits' "Midtown" is another. "Trip City" from GitS:SAC is a mashup of two Spiritualized songs.

Plagiarism also seems to be endemic in Japanese music in general, though the complete extent of it is hard to say. the pillows' "One Life" (as heard in FLCL) is very heavily based on Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger", and Rui Nagai's Big O theme is a complete replica of Queen's Flash Gordon theme, to give two examples from well-known works.

[BobBQ]

There's also the Metal Gear Solid theme and Sviridov's Winter Road.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Apperantly music from bebop by Yoko Kanno is possibly plagiarized.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cowboybebop/co ... _thoughts/

They have links so you can listen and compare.

"Plagiarized from" or "Inspired by," either one would fit the bill at this point. The similarities are there, but it's not to the point where you can really accuse her of lifting every beat, melody, and harmony progression in order to create songs nearly indistinguishable from one another. Here's a list of other sings that sounds strikingly similar, and only a couple of them got in trouble for it. Here's a list of movies that do the same thing.

And here's the reason why I laugh uncontrollably anytime someone says that any work of art is "original." Sure, the amount of things humans can musically connect in order to build something is vast and varied, but the amount of things people actually want to make or experience is obscenely small in comparison to that vast potential. So just so long as music or movies aren't being pirated, then I really feel uncomfortable saying that something that's actually illegal is happening here.

[esselfortium]

"Plagiarized from" or "Inspired by," either one would fit the bill at this point. The similarities are there, but it's not to the point where you can really accuse her of lifting every beat, melody, and harmony progression in order to create songs nearly indistinguishable from one another. Here's a list of other sings that sounds strikingly similar, and only a couple of them got in trouble for it. Here's a list of movies that do the same thing.

And here's the reason why I laugh uncontrollably anytime someone says that any work of art is "original." Sure, the amount of things humans can musically connect in order to build something is vast and varied, but the amount of things people actually want to make or experience is obscenely small in comparison to that vast potential. So just so long as music or movies aren't being pirated, then I really feel uncomfortable saying that something that's actually illegal is happening here.

No, a bunch of her songs literally are flat-out plagiarized, note-for-note. I wrote about some of them in this thread earlier in the year.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Yes, I read those. "Inspired by" is still a very adequate term for it. Zodiac Sign's opening riff alternates between only two different notes, whereas Knock on the Sky's opening riff alternates between 4 different notes. Note by note plagiarism isn't exactly accurate with that song, or any of her other songs.

[robersora]

To me it's funny, that nobody juggled with the idea that all of her music that closely resembles already existing music,
(call it inspired by, or plagiarizing... as a musician, I think the line is super fluid and the idea seems rather weird, because there's only so many sounds that sound good together, and most popular music has the same framework yada yada yada)
is that way because whoever was in charge said, "I want to sound it like this song, but we don't have the money to licence it, please change it just enough, so we can use it".
All of her OSTs are commissioned works after all.
Yes, you could argue, that she could have done it better / e.g. alter it more, but we don't know what went down. Time constraints, a stubborn director/producer insisting that the song was just changed enough that it could be used without paying licence fees....

[Sachi]

Most music is derivative regardless. The Cowboy Bebop soundtrack is intentionally derivative of old jazz and blues, and these homages aren't kept secret other; it's right there within the themes of the show. Music as an artform naturally lends itself to borrowing from other artists and reinterpreting their work. One thing Yoko Kanno is, however, is an excellent producer, and she has enough musical know-how to arrange compositions to suit her needs and it sounds great. That's all that really matters to me.

[zlink64]

If it matters, I remember reading that apparently the way she went about making music is extremely common in anime which make sense because a similar thing happens in movie making. Also that they actually had the rights to use some of the music she copied. I'm talking from memory though from things I read on reddit.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

If it matters, I remember reading that apparently the way she went about making music is extremely common in anime which make sense because a similar thing happens in movie making. Also that they actually had the rights to use some of the music she copied. I'm talking from memory though from things I read on reddit.

As far as anime/movie music goes, that's pretty accurate. The main difference between those scores and Cowboy Bebop is that, while Kanno and Watanabe referenced other music while collaborating for their projects, they don't make "safe" or "predictable" choices. They actively make choices that are unconventional to the genres they're producing. That, and Kanno has the musical sensibilities to differentiate her work enough to where you don't feel like you're listening to the exact same song over again. You can recognize attributes, but Knock on the Sky is emotionally and thematically different about a situation completely unrelated to that of Zodiac Sign. The lyrics, instrumentation, cadence of the chorus, and musical riffs of the track all work to a completely different context, thereby naturally separating themselves from their predecessors.

Also, the fact they we tend to complain about perceived "plagiarism" when Cowboy Bebop makes unsafe and less predictable choices with their music, but don't complain about potentially illegal, capital-P Plagiarism when it occurs in predictable and safe musical choices in Hollywood films, speaks greatly to how conditioned we've become artistically. Audiences will only complain in some fashion when something unexpected happens, even if they enjoy that unexpectedness. Keep everything predicable, and you can copy+paste your way into a steady, unchallenged career.

[esselfortium]

As far as anime/movie music goes, that's pretty accurate. The main difference between those scores and Cowboy Bebop is that, while Kanno and Watanabe referenced other music while collaborating for their projects, they don't make "safe" or "predictable" choices. They actively make choices that are unconventional to the genres they're producing. That, and Kanno has the musical sensibilities to differentiate her work enough to where you don't feel like you're listening to the exact same song over again. You can recognize attributes, but Knock on the Sky is emotionally and thematically different about a situation completely unrelated to that of Zodiac Sign. The lyrics, instrumentation, cadence of the chorus, and musical riffs of the track all work to a completely different context, thereby naturally separating themselves from their predecessors.

Also, the fact they we tend to complain about perceived "plagiarism" when Cowboy Bebop makes unsafe and less predictable choices with their music, but don't complain about potentially illegal, capital-P Plagiarism when it occurs in predictable and safe musical choices in Hollywood films, speaks greatly to how conditioned we've become artistically. Audiences will only complain in some fashion when something unexpected happens, even if they enjoy that unexpectedness. Keep everything predicable, and you can copy+paste your way into a steady, unchallenged career.

Zodiac Sign isn't related to Pushing The Sky. Want It All Back is the song that's virtually a note-for-note ripoff of Zodiac Sign and there is no way in the universe that it would hold up if it had been challenged in court.

Most music is derivative regardless. The Cowboy Bebop soundtrack is intentionally derivative of old jazz and blues, and these homages aren't kept secret other; it's right there within the themes of the show. Music as an artform naturally lends itself to borrowing from other artists and reinterpreting their work. One thing Yoko Kanno is, however, is an excellent producer, and she has enough musical know-how to arrange compositions to suit her needs and it sounds great. That's all that really matters to me.

This isn't something specific to Kanno's work on Cowboy Bebop, it extends to all of her soundtracks. There are multiple entirely stolen songs on the Stand Alone Complex soundtrack, and I'm not talking about "the chord progression is similar" or "both songs are jazz" similarities. A few times I've even concluded that songs of hers are just vaguely stylistically similar to another, and assumed that she had thus actually written it, before finding out later on that it was in fact a note-for-note copy of something else. I can enjoy listening to her soundtracks, but it's depressingly hard for me to have any respect for her as an artist when she's stolen enough that I have to be skeptical of whether any of the music credited to her is actually her music.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Someone missed the discussion where it extends to all music.

Edit: Zodiac Sign and Want it all Back have as much in common with each other as Star Wars does to King's Row. Same intro, similar instrumentation, same time signature, different melodies. No harm done.

[robersora]

For anybody who's interested, here's a lengthy interview with Kanno on how she approaches making music. I haven't read it in a while, but I remember it being pretty interesting.