10 Shameless Rock Ripoffs That Are Great
7. Come As You Are - Nirvana (1992)
Kurt Cobain was always upfront about where he drew inspiration from. The Nevermind album was essentially a merging of Black Flag's second record, My War, and the Pixies' debut, Surfer Rosa. Although the melodies were different, the approaches to song structuring, were heavily inspired by these two records. When it came to Come As You Are, however, it was fairly obvious the opening riff had been recycled.
Even Kurt Cobain was weary about its similarities to Killing Joke's song, Eighties (1984). It's widely documented that Cobain was hesitant to release the single for fear of drawing comparisons... Killing Joke supposably explored some legal action but were dissuaded when things started getting a little Inceptiony.
Killing Joke had also been accused of ripping the riff from a track by The Damned, Life Goes On; which they had supposedly lifted from another track from the '60s. The more people dug into it, the further back the true origins of the riff seemed to go. Killing Joke quickly dropped the idea of suing Nirvana, but were fairly vocal about their annoyance for years to come.