10 Shameless Rock Ripoffs That Are Great
9. Creep – Radiohead (1992)
Before Thom York and Johnny Greenwood were the kings of avant-garde ambience, they were releasing far more run-of-the-mill alternative rock numbers.
Ask any Radiohead fan, and they'll probably list Creep pretty low on their all time favourite tracks. To hardcore Thom Yorke devotees, it rest very much in the realm of entry level Radiohead compositions. This was back when Radiohead was 'commercial', if you could ever use that word to describe them.
Despite Creep's validity as a respectable song to reference or not, it is one of the group's most recognised numbers. It was the track that broke them into the mainstream, but the song's popularity brought with it some unwanted attention. The Hollies wound up suing Radiohead for the similarities to the 1974 single The Air That I Breathe. The original writers received a percentage of the publishing rights, which must have amounted to a nice little retirement fund...
Ironically enough, Radiohead went after Lana Del Ray in 2018 for the same reason. Get Free, is almost shameless in its plagiarism of the Creep chord progression...