Ok, so here's the deal.
A Finnish demoscener and tracker musician, Janne Suni aka Tempest/Damage, makes a 4-channel Amiga track called "Acid Jazzed Evening" for
Assembly demoparty's oldskool music competition in 2000 and actually won the category. Then 6 years later, known producer Timbaland, who makes music for several known artists, ripped the track and it appeared on Nelly Furtado's track 'Do It' on her latest album 'Loose'.
This kind of things with demoscene music have happened before. In late 90s one Australian guy was selling lots of straight exported tracker modules as his own work. It's interesting that this happens and I guess it's because of these people aren't aware how popular and wide the demoscene actually is. So they think that if they haven't heard about it before, they can't get caught. And it's totally wrong thinking since most of ripped songs have been really well known in demoscene, party winners or made by most famous demosceners.
I've personally seen a lot of "this guy has stolen my music" type of threads and I'm always sceptic towards them, since really same kind of melodies can be made by accident. But this one is so clear that I think it was worth posting. Nevertheless, check the links below.
Evidence:
The original .MOD file you can get from Scene.org
here.A mp3 of the same file, for those who don't have proper programs for playing the sourcefile, is
hereA c64 musician called grg remade the song on the c64 (using the infamous SID soundchip) which is what Timbaland used for Furtado's song. Mp3 version of it
here.
Clip from the "Do It"
hereA video demonstration of the tracks
hereThe source for this post, comments and more discussion
here and
hereThis is unbelievable straight rip you rarely hear about. Also, I feel really sorry for Tempest, since I'm an old tracker musician myself and this isn't small thing like ripping a module and uploading it elsewhere with your own name, because in this case it's about serious business.
Edit:
The next is a post at the latter forum link above. The writer claims to be Tempest, can't be sure about it, but the analysis written are all correct:
"Ok. Something fooked up. I'll try again:
I came here to clear up some things...
Seems like many of the people writing here didn't even bother to listen closely to 'Acidjazzed Evening' (referred as AE from now on) and 'Do It' (referred is DI from now on), or are just plain tonedeaf. Maybe it would help if I'd explain what those songs have and don't have in common. Grab your headphones, because they really help spotting the stuff in DI that got sampled!
First: the basis of the song DI is the intro from AE. If you want to spot the similarities, then don't listen AE longer than 15 seconds, which holds 16 bars of music (no, DI is not "quoting" AE - 1-2 seconds would be quoting). There is not a single part in DI that is not based on these 16 bars. In the chorus of DI, the sampled part is cut into half and only the first half of it is being used, played over and over till the next verse, when the whole sample is being played again.
AE repeats it's intro-theme at some point, but mainly it goes to another directions. If you have hard time finding the resemblance between AE and DI, then don't listen AE for more than 15 seconds. This is crucial.
What was sampled?
For DI someone sampled the intro of GRG's C64-version of AE, but with disabling the bass-channel. The bassline was reconstructed in DI - no, It's not "totally different" than AE's bassline as someone said. It's just a stripped down version, with octave intervals removed (fe. A2-A3 -> A2) and 2-3 notes left out. There are 6 different chords (of which many are repeated) in AE's intro, jazzy kind of chords that for most I dont even know their names, but I'll list them here to show that it's not a typical pop-song chord-progression (actually if someone can find a similar chord-progression, I'll give him a beer or two):
G# C C# F | A# C# F G# | G# C# D# F | F# A# C# F | A# C D# G# | G# C D# F
Each column represents a list of notes used in each chord. It's not the actual chord-progression, but a list of the 6 chords (most popsongs have around 3-4 chords all together) used in the intro, but I think you get the point...
The chords are arpeggiated, which means that the notes in the chord are being played at the same time, but being rapidly from lowest note to the highest and not at the same time. This is a crucial point for anyone who can differentiate a clear note from a dog bark and because chords are not usually played like this, unless you're a superfast heavy metal guitar player, J. C. Bach or a 80s homecomputer-soundchip with only 3 channels available.
But in mainstream pop music? No chance.
The melody?
Listen to AE's intro few times and then listen to DI with headphones on. It's all there, playing in the background. The melody that Nelly sings is kind of a variation of the melody in AE's intro, but the original melody is also there, in the background of DI! Here's another crucial point; they didn't remove the original melody, but only lowered down it's volume and placed another melody (which Nelly sings) on top of it. I'd call this counterpoint, if the the people behind DI wouldn't be such hacks. If you want to verify my claim about the melody, then don't pay much attention to what Nelly is singing (or the drums) but everything else what is there; bassline, "background-melody" and the arpeggiated chords.
There you have it. 16 bars of music, a whole verse, which became about 4 verses in the hands of another.
I can't discuss the legal issues here. Let's just say that Big Record Companies are surely the works of The Devil.
Spread the word...
-tempest"
