10 Shameless Rock Ripoffs That Are Great
4. Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr. (1984)
If you grew up in the '80s or '90s, the original Ghostbusters movie was a staple in your childhood viewing. Even if you hadn't seen the film, you'd have recognised the theme tune. It's as iconic as the Back to the Future soundtrack, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
But this iconic number has a sordid history of shameless plagiarism, despite its brilliance. During the '80s Huey Lewis and the News were hot sh*t. Dad rock had never been more popular, and Huey Lewis was the king of it. His 1983 album, Sports, made him and his group a household name. Their sound was quintessentially indicative of the decade, with carefree, feel good melodies, and plenty of saxophone. If you wanted a feel good movie-montage moment, you turned to Lewis and the News.
The group was so popular, they received constant offers to write music for soundtracks; their most famous being the 1985 theme for Back to the Future. But a year earlier Lewis had been offered the gig of scoring Ghostbusters. He refused. Despite his refusal the filmmakers used Lewis' song I Want a New Drug, in several early cuts of the movie.
They ended up sending over the edit to Ray Parker Jr. to give him an idea of what they were looking for. Parker took it all a little too literally and essentially just reworked the Lewis song... needless to say the lawsuits followed.