10 Rock Bands That Ripped Off Their Own Songs

It’s never easy to just conjure up a song out of nothing. Sometimes it has to be the right place at the right time and one of the greatest songs in the world will just manage to fall out of the air. Most musicians need to work on a deadline though, and there’s nothing wrong with copying their old material every now and again.

Though there have been many bands that just have a signature sound and spend the rest of their days copying that style, these are the times where you can tell that the band was trying to write the same song over again and seeing if they can get away with it. You can call this lazy if you wanted to, but there’s actually a lot of merit to hearing these songs the second time around.

As much as the original might have a sort of classic status, these versions almost offer you a different take on the matter, either letting the songwriter go through different lyrics or trying it in a completely different feel to make it seem like a new adventure when you listen to it in the headphones. It might not be the most original thing in the world when you actually hear it, but it’s just a testament to the song if you can get multiple hits out of the exact same thing.

The art of ripping off has really followed Muse around since the dawn of their career. If you go back and listen to some of the great songs off Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, you can tell that Matthew Bellamy had a bit of a fascination with bands like Radiohead, taking the Thom Yorke falsetto and combining it with songs that have to do with everything from the oncoming apocalypse to the dangers of technology. Muse built a whole separate universe for this kind of music, but they did have to revisit some old habits every now and again.

During the leadup to their album Drones, Matt had mentioned that it would be a return to the more aggressive side of the band from their earlier years, along with dabbling in some of their progressive leanings. While we did get some great rock cuts like Reapers and Mercy, something a little bit familiar came up when going through the song The Globalist. Using the exact same key and epic scope, this is basically Muse going through something like Citizen Erased off Origin all over again.

Though the notes aren't the same, it mostly has to do with the way the song is constructed here, going from the epic riff that kicks everything off to swelling down to the classical section with just solo piano and Matt's voice. They might take a few pages out of their favorite bands every now and again, but Muse had honed their skills well enough by 2015 to pull from their own playbook.