Anyone else noticed the similarity between Metric’s “Help I’m Alive” and Big Audio Dynamite II’s “Rush?” No? Just me? Every time I hear that Metric song I can’t help but start singing “Rush”- a song I’ve always found beyond annoying, which, needless to say, precludes any ability for me to appreciate “Help I’m Alive.” BAD has not only retroactively tarnished Mick Jones’ contributions to The Clash but now it’s ruining modern indie rock, too…
For the melodic similarity check about 1:40 into the Metric song versus the moment the BAD II video starts. The sound quality of the latter is, uh, bad, but the official video conveniently has embedding disabled.
3 responses so far ↓
1 stephen O. // Jul 26, 2009 at 6:40 pm
you’ve got to be kidding. The resemblance is minimal at best, and besides who the f*** cares about appropriation and inspiration in the 21st century. BAD was just great fun and shouldn’t be compared to the Clash, which no-one will ever live up to.
2 K // Jul 26, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Interesting. I’m usually the one pointing out these sorts of things. I can kinda hear what you’re talking about. I’ve always thought that something about that song was reminiscent of something else as it is definitely an amalgamation of sounds.
@stephen I don’t think anyone was saying anything about appropriation in the 21st century.
3 Eric Greenwood // Jul 26, 2009 at 7:10 pm
@stephen O. umm, BAD was horrible. embarrassing, even. if that’s what you call “great fun”, i shudder at what might be in your music library. and i didn’t compare it to the clash, if you’ll kindly re-read…