Music: What are your most overrated songs?

[TheGreenTBer]

Bohemian Rhapsody is not overrated. It just was played a lot especially after Wayne's World and the Queen movie when everyone became a Queen poser for six months.

Any real music fan and real Queen fans know that The Prophet Song > Bohemian Rhapsody

I'd say Adelle's singles are very overrated. Overplayed and just too much.

Also Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars and any of John Mayer's dumb singles. Both musicians are much better.

RHCP are my favorite group but I do not like Dani California for about five reasons. The video was more fun than the song and they have about ten radio singles I can roll off that are much better both before and after.

I think "Innuendo" is better than Bohemian Rhapsody, personally. Also, Dani California is shit so I'm glad you called it out.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

So much this. Hate that goddamn song so much.

 

[Shareefruck]

easily most of the Beatles hits. They are the backstreet boys of the 60s.

I've always found this type of point really bizarre, where people take the thing that something originated from and later transcended and focus on criticizing the first part for some reason. The Beatles were just a boy band, Bob Dylan was just a protest singer, etc. Very strange to define something by the very thing that they're most widely famous for outgrowing and leaving behind.

The logic of that ends up cartoonishly coming across like "Bah!! Once a ____, always a ____!", which can't possibly be the intention, right? If the idea is that they never actually outgrew that thing, that seems like a pretty important detail to include in the statement.

 

[tacogeoff]

I've always found this type of point really bizarre, where people take the thing that something originated from and later transcended and focus on criticizing the first part for some reason. The Beatles were just a boy band, Bob Dylan was just a protest singer, etc. Very strange to define something by the very thing that they're most widely famous for outgrowing and leaving behind.

The logic of that ends up cartoonishly coming across like "Bah!! Once a ____, always a ____!", which can't possibly be the intention, right? If the idea is that they never actually outgrew that thing, that seems like a pretty important detail to include in the statement.

No. I disagree.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

No. I disagree.

In my experience, Beatles fans get very defensive when you tell them you don’t enjoy their music, more so than other any other group I’ve ever debated others about.

When you explain to them how they blatantly ripped off/borrowed/whatever from black musicians like Berry, Strong, Alexander, etc... they really get angry and it almost always becomes impossible to have a legit conversation about how innovative they actually were and their place in history.

 

[Shareefruck]

In my experience, Beatles fans get very defensive when you tell them you don’t enjoy their music, more so than other any other group I’ve ever debated others about.

When you explain to them how they blatantly ripped off/borrowed/whatever from black musicians like Berry, Strong, Alexander, etc... they really get angry and it almost always becomes impossible to have a legit conversation about how innovative they actually were and their place in history.

What the..... is that seriously what you got from that exchange you're quoting specifically?

I wasn't arguing with his position on The Beatles being incorrect, I was arguing with his specific choice of reasoning (which didn't mirror yours at all) being weird.

If one were to argue that The Beatles were bad or overrated, that's fine, but it would only really make sense to do so by explaining why their post-Rubber Soul output is bad (which could very well be argued), not their early Backstreet-Boys-ish Beatlemania period (which they themselves got sick of and moved away from in their prime) being dismissable (alot of people defend or prefer that era, but I'm certainly not a fan of it, personally).

Here's a similar analogy-- it potentially makes sense to find Radiohead very overrated and bad, but to argue that on the grounds that Creep is a bad song would be a really strange and illogical way to go about it. It's arguably their worst song that they quickly/famously grew out of and moved onto better things from. Even if we all hypothetically agreed that Radiohead was actually trash, Creep is irrelevant to why they're thought highly of, at this point.

I can't believe the implication is that this line of questioning is impossible to have a legit conversation with when his response to it was essentially just "Nope." I get that there are tons of obnoxiously defensive and arrogant Beatles fans, but you shouldn't project your own bad experiences with them onto every exchange that you see.

 

[Mikeaveli]

In my experience, Beatles fans get very defensive when you tell them you don’t enjoy their music, more so than other any other group I’ve ever debated others about.

When you explain to them how they blatantly ripped off/borrowed/whatever from black musicians like Berry, Strong, Alexander, etc... they really get angry and it almost always becomes impossible to have a legit conversation about how innovative they actually were and their place in history.

So apparently covering an artists song is blatantly ripping them off lol. I guess 99% of blues musicians are talentless hacks then. I also don't understand how you think an artist having influences is some sort of point against that artist. Every musician on the planet is influenced by other musicians.

 

[Roo Returns]

I think "Innuendo" is better than Bohemian Rhapsody, personally. Also, Dani California is shit so I'm glad you called it out.

80s Queen gets a bad rep. A lot of it isn't great but there are moments.

Stadium Arcadium is the album where I finally turned on Rubin as a producer. There is a lot of good stuff on that album but he failed as a producer to you know, actually produce. That entire song is awful. I'm not a fan of sequels or reoccurring characters or tropes in music.

The fact that Frusciante is back in RHCP: tremendous. The fact that they recorded a new album during covid and it's done: tremendously tremendous as Eddie O. would say. The fact they got it done so quickly which leads me to believe Rick Rubin is involved: worrisome to the overall product.

 

[Shareefruck]

So apparently covering an artists song is blatantly ripping them off lol. I guess 99% of blues musicians are talentless hacks then. I also don't understand how you think an artist having influences is some sort of point against that artist. Every musician on the planet is influenced by other musicians.

I think the "stealing" from black musicians criticism makes a lot more sense with someone like Elvis, who actually stuck with that type of music, had his reputation built on it, and got all the credit for it. It's a weird point of criticism for The Beatles, though, because their most acclaimed material doesn't seem to even have much in common with those early Chuck Berry roots.

If one wanted to criticize them of being overrated because they ripped off other artists, I think it would make more sense to accuse them of "copying" other artists like Bob Dylan, The Byrds, or The Beach Boys instead.

But like you said, not a super great argument either way. How good or bad you are has more to do with what you do/don't do with your influences, not whether or not you have them in the first place.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

So apparently covering an artists song is blatantly ripping them off lol. I guess 99% of blues musicians are talentless hacks then. I also don't understand how you think an artist having influences is some sort of point against that artist. Every musician on the planet is influenced by other musicians.

There is a difference between influence and ripping someone off.

- Beatles were sued by Levy for blatantly ripping off Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me”.

- Revolution was straight plagiarism from Crayton’s “Do Unto Others”

- Lady Madonna was swiped from Lyttelton‘s “Bad Penny Blues”

- Harrison was found guilty of plagiarism when he ripped off “He’s So Fine”.

- “I Feel Fine” was a straight rip off of Parker’s “Watch Your Step”

Once again, their “innovations” were more plagiarism than the result of being some musical geniuses.

Lennon even had to write a letter in the 70s trying to defend why they had a propensity for ripping off black artists.

He called it a “love in”... which is basically code for rip off.

 

[Shareefruck]

There is a difference between influence and ripping someone off.

- Beatles were sued by Levy for blatantly ripping off Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me”.

- Revolution was straight plagiarism from Crayton’s “Do Unto Others”

- Lady Madonna was swiped from Lyttelton‘s “Bad Penny Blues”

- Harrison was found guilty of plagiarism when he ripped off “He’s So Fine”.

- “I Feel Fine” was a straight rip off of Parker’s “Watch Your Step”

Once again, their “innovations” were more plagiarism than the result of being some musical geniuses.

Lennon even had to write a letter in the 70s trying to defend why they had a propensity for ripping off black artists.

He called it a “love in”... which is basically code for rip off.

I think it's fair to call them out on some plagiarism and to find them overrated for ever having resorted to it, but that's a far cry from "Once again, their “innovations” were more plagiarism than the result of being some musical geniuses." which seems like a gross exaggeration. This would require plagiarism to be more often the case than not, and for their more acclaimed tracks to be guilty of it. Aside from Revolution (if I'm not mistaken just the opening riff of the single version appears to have been lifted), these examples don't exactly strike me as what they were most often credited as being influential for.

I mean, who the hell thinks The Beatles are geniuses for writing Lady Madonna?

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I think it's fair to call them out on some plagiarism and to find them overrated for ever having resorted to it, but that's a far cry from "Once again, their “innovations” were more plagiarism than the result of being some musical geniuses." which seems like a gross exaggeration. This would require plagiarism to be more often the case than not, and for their more acclaimed tracks to be guilty of it. Aside from Revolution (if I'm not mistaken just the opening riff of the single version appears to have been lifted), these examples don't exactly strike me as what they were most often credited as being influential for.

I mean, who the hell thinks The Beatles are geniuses for writing Lady Madonna?

They literally admitted they ripped people off all the time...

Everything Fab Four: The Beatles As 'Plagiarists Extraordinaires' | HuffPost

As McCartney later admitted, “We were the biggest nickers in town. Plagiarists extraordinaires.”

But the Beatles’ musical interplay with Berry went way beyond mere influence, which was sizable enough in its own right. At times, they resorted to out-and-out musical theft, barely making an effort to hide their tracks.

This is why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with Beatles fans, because they live in denial about who these guys were.

They ripped off other artists left and right, most especially black artists.

It’s just straight up, raw facts they even admitted to.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

This is why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with Beatles fans, because they live in denial about who these guys were.

Who are you replying to? Sharee? You deduced from his posts that he was in denial of your understanding of who The Beatles were?

Aside from Revolution (if I'm not mistaken just the opening riff of the single version appears to have been lifted)

In other spheres, this straight plagiarism would be called an allusion. And a brilliant one at that.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Who are you replying to? Sharee? You deduced from his posts that he was in denial of your understanding of who The Beatles were?

Uh, sure.

It was a follow up statement to what I wrote earlier, now backed with more evidence directed in general.

In other spheres, this straight plagiarism would be called an allusion. And a brilliant one at that.

And in the real world it’s called ripping another artist off.

 

[Shareefruck]

In other spheres, this straight plagiarism would be called an allusion. And a brilliant one at that.

I'm ambivalent about it. I prefer Revolution 1 over the single version by a longshot, personally.

This is why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with Beatles fans, because they live in denial about who these guys were.

They ripped off other artists left and right, most especially black artists.

It’s just straight up, raw facts they even admitted to.

What's actually making it impossible to have an honest conversation right now is that you seem to be throwing everyone who has any appreciation of a band into a bucket that you automatically label as some sort of super-fan who's unreasonable, in denial, and unwilling to engage, and when the reasoning behind your points is remotely questioned (even when someone meets you halfway or merely asks for further clarification), you seem to just outright reject it as if your conclusions are self evident. This is the opposite of engaging something in good faith, so it's ironic that you're pre-emptively accusing others of doing that.

The evidence that you've given suggests that The Beatles have borrowed from other artists in a way that could be considered plagiarism (although Pranzo Oltranzista seems to be pushing back on that)-- as you say, The Beatles themselves have admitted to that much-- but even if I grant you that, there are numerous other points of contention beyond that which are relevant. Does "stealing" anything at all automatically disqualify an artist entirely? Is that determined by some threshold that they cross? Or does removing the credit they're given for those songs sufficiently account for that? How much have they stolen overall that should be discredited from their discography? Assuming that you wipe those stolen credits away from them, what is leftover that isn't stolen? And how good should they be considered on the merits of those non-stolen songs alone?

These are the kinds of things that I'm curious about and think matters alot, that I've been trying to steer the conversation towards, and that your follow-ups haven't touched on at all, but you're not allowing for any of that discussion because you've already labeled me as the enemy for some reason (even though I've spent as much time trashing Beatles songs in this thread as I have been praising them).

And for the record, my initial attitude towards your argument was not "The Beatles can do no wrong, gotta dismiss this guy for suggesting otherwise" (which you appear to have leapt to), it was genuinely more like "The Beatles often do w/e homages to their roots that are a cute but ultimately forgettable chunk of their output. It's possible that most of those were plagiarized, but who cares about these more derivative songs to begin with? Lady Madonna and all that could be wiped from existence for all I care. Rip-off, cover, homage, allusion, whatever it is, it's mostly trivial material to me. But if the actual good stuff where they mostly abandon their blues-y/pure rock and roll roots (in my view) like Tomorrow Never Knows was sonically plagiarized from Chuck Berry or whoever else, then sure, I'd start second-guessing their innovations."

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I'm ambivalent about it. I prefer Revolution 1 over the single version by a longshot, personally.

I think I prefer R1 too, but just by a hair. It's still a very effective allusion that allows to go get the "do untho others as you'd have them do untho you" as significant return to Revolution.

And in the real world it’s called ripping another artist off.

Yeah,... can't remember though if it was Bakhtin or Kristeva who coined the terms...

But seriously... You're telling me that when you hear Revolution (the whole song), your reception is "What a blatant ripoff! Me angry!"?

"Hang 'hem high! Plagiarists!"...

 

[Shareefruck]

I think I prefer R1 too, but just by a hair. It's still a very effective allusion to go get the "do untho others as you'd have them do untho you" as significant return to Revolution.

I'll be honest though. While sure, I think stuff like that can be effective and valid, if my favorite thing about Revolution was that heavy riff and I found out it was an allusion to something else, I wouldn't automatically dislike the song, but I probably would have less appreciation for it than if they had come up with it themselves. So considering the song overrated if that was the perception would make some sense to me.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I'm ambivalent about it. I prefer Revolution 1 over the single version by a longshot, personally.
What's actually making it impossible to have an honest conversation right now is that you seem to be throwing everyone who has any appreciation of a band into a bucket that you automatically label as some sort of super-fan who's unreasonable, in denial, and unwilling to engage, and when the reasoning behind your points is remotely questioned (even when someone meets you halfway or merely asks for further clarification), you seem to just outright reject it as if your conclusions are self evident. This is the opposite of engaging something in good faith, so it's ironic that you're pre-emptively accusing others of doing that.

The evidence that you've given suggests that The Beatles have borrowed from other artists in a way that could be considered plagiarism (although Pranzo Oltranzista seems to be pushing back on that)-- as you say, The Beatles themselves have admitted to that much-- but even if I grant you that, there are numerous other points of contention beyond that which are relevant. Does "stealing" anything at all automatically disqualify an artist entirely? Is that determined by some threshold that they cross? Or does removing the credit they're given for those songs sufficiently account for that? How much have they stolen overall that should be discredited from their discography? Assuming that you wipe those stolen credits away from them, what is leftover that isn't stolen? And how good should they be considered on the merits of those non-stolen songs alone?

These are the kinds of things that I'm curious about and think matters alot, that I've been trying to steer the conversation towards, and that your follow-ups haven't touched on at all, but you're not allowing for any of that discussion because you've already labeled me as the enemy for some reason (even though I've spent as much time trashing Beatles songs in this thread as I have been praising them).

And for the record, my initial attitude towards your argument was not "The Beatles can do no wrong, gotta dismiss this guy for suggesting otherwise" (which you appear to have leapt to), it was genuinely more like "The Beatles often do w/e homages to their roots that are a cute but ultimately forgettable chunk of their output. It's possible that most of those were plagiarized, but who cares about these more derivative songs to begin with? Lady Madonna and all that could be wiped from existence for all I care. Rip-off, cover, homage, allusion, whatever it is, it's mostly trivial material to me. But if the actual good stuff where they mostly abandon their blues-y/pure rock and roll roots (in my view) like Tomorrow Never Knows was sonically plagiarized from Chuck Berry or whoever else, then sure, I'd start second-guessing their innovations."

I’m going to be quite honest, you are being quite disingenuous here. Whether it’s to steer away from the indisputable evidence, I have no clue and won’t make that accusation, but I do find it odd TBTH.

I have never once labeled you as any type of Beatles fan and have written about my own encounters with their actual fan boys.

Everything I wrote was generalities about why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with their fan boys in my experiences.

I was actually accused of some silly “hot take”
for pointing out the truth about the Beatles.

I then provided ample evidence to show how they have been serial plagiarists throughout their careers.

They even copped to it either outright like McCartney or with some BS “love in” excuse like Lenon used.

I have more than defended my position and it’s obviously not a “hot take” which was the other poster’s way of trying to blow off my opinion.

If you enjoy their music, cool. Just don’t tell me they were original and maybe borrowed from a few artists - they plagiarized in abundance.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I’m going to be quite honest, you are being quite disingenuous here. Whether it’s to steer away from the indisputable evidence, I have no clue and won’t make that accusation, but I do find it odd TBTH.

I have never once labeled you as any type of Beatles fan and have written about my own encounters with their actual fan boys.

Everything I wrote was generalities about why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with their fan boys in my experiences.

I was actually accused of some silly “hot take”
for pointing out the truth about the Beatles.

I then provided ample evidence to show how they have been serial plagiarists throughout their careers.

They even copped to it either outright like McCartney or with some BS “love in” excuse like Lenon used.

I have more than defended my position and it’s obviously not a “hot take” which was the other poster’s way of trying to blow off my opinion.

If you enjoy their music, cool. Just don’t tell me they were original and maybe borrowed from a few artists - they plagiarized in abundance.

Well, if I were to be quite honest, you wouldn't like me much. We got it, you "found" ( ) a few elements in the 300+ songs of the Beatles that were borrowed from other works, and that's reason enough for you to discredit their work. You do you, as they say, but that's such a limited understanding of art that you'll have to excuse me if I don't mind you.

The right way of reading these intertexts, is to reconsider the borrowing work in relation to the original work they are pointing to - unless you want to pretend that the punctual borrowing in Revolution, or the ol' flat top are not obvious enough to be intertextual markers - and maybe then you might have something worthwhile to say about the music. You can choose to read the music as a lawyer, but please don't pretend that we're discussing the same type of value or "worth". Now tell me what you think of Michael Nyman? (...)

 

[Gordon Lightfoot]

You know that scene in that movie when the DJ plays "Bohemian Rhapsody" and all those negative reviews start filling up the screen? I thought most of those quotes were right on the money. Especially the one about it being pompous.

My runner-up would be "Whole Lotta Plagiarizing" by Led Zeppelin. It's a mystery to me why so many consider it to be their signature song. I think it's one of the most boring ones in their catalogue. They've had dozens of songs that were much better.

I also don't quite get why Whole Lotta Love is considered a premium Led Zeppelin song. It doesn't strike me as much different from most of their songs.

 

[Shareefruck]

I’m going to be quite honest, you are being quite disingenuous here. Whether it’s to steer away from the indisputable evidence, I have no clue and won’t make that accusation, but I do find it odd TBTH.

I have never once labeled you as any type of Beatles fan and have written about my own encounters with their actual fan boys.

Everything I wrote was generalities about why it’s impossible to have an honest conversation with their fan boys in my experiences.

I was actually accused of some silly “hot take”
for pointing out the truth about the Beatles.

I then provided ample evidence to show how they have been serial plagiarists throughout their careers.

They even copped to it either outright like McCartney or with some BS “love in” excuse like Lenon used.

I have more than defended my position and it’s obviously not a “hot take” which was the other poster’s way of trying to blow off my opinion.

If you enjoy their music, cool. Just don’t tell me they were original and maybe borrowed from a few artists - they plagiarized in abundance.

If the bolded is really the case, then it may just be a miscommunication. But the fact that even here, you're automatically jumping to "disingenuous" and being suspicious of a distraction tactic (saying that you're not accusing someone of something is kind of negated when you put it out there anyways, btw) kind of reinforces what felt like passive aggressiveness and lumping me in with the opposition to me.

Here is what caused me to believe you were lumping me in with that. This was my response to your assertion.

I think it's fair to call them out on some plagiarism and to find them overrated for ever having resorted to it, but that's a far cry from "Once again, their “innovations” were more plagiarism than the result of being some musical geniuses." which seems like a gross exaggeration. This would require plagiarism to be more often the case than not, and for their more acclaimed tracks to be guilty of it. Aside from Revolution (if I'm not mistaken just the opening riff of the single version appears to have been lifted), these examples don't exactly strike me as what they were most often credited as being influential for.
I mean, who the hell thinks The Beatles are geniuses for writing Lady Madonna?

As mentioned, this doesn't disregard your claims of the existence of plagiarism by The Beatles, but asks to what degree that a forgettable selection of accused songs should influence a person's opinion about the band in the grand scheme of things when they pale in comparison to the songs and parts of songs that they have that they are actually credited with "genius" for.

You replied to this with a counter-argument that didn't address what I questioned, but instead gave more evidence that there was plagiarism at play (which wasn't questioned), followed up with a remark about it being impossible to have a conversation with Beatles fanboys, which came across at a passive aggressive dig at the fact that you were still being questioned. Naturally, I was confused about whether you were referring to the person you were quoting, and apparently, Pranzo Oltranzista was too.

Who are you replying to? Sharee? You deduced from his posts that he was in denial of your understanding of who The Beatles were?

You replied to that confusion with

Uh, sure.
It was a follow up statement to what I wrote earlier, now backed with more evidence directed in general.

I get that it's a general statement, but the "Uh, sure" implied to me that you're lumping me in with that general statement as well. There isn't anything else in Pranzo's post to "Uh sure" about besides whether or not it was intended to be directed at me, from what I can see.

If that wasn't the intention, then so be it, that's a misunderstanding, but maybe be mindful of who you quote and what you choose to/not to address in those quotes. If you just want to tunnel in on your initial thought without addressing me or anything I said, maybe consider clarifying both of those things in your reply, or just quote the thing that you're actually trying to counter.

And yeah, I'm still curious about what your take on my actual follow-up questions were-- you kind of just charged right past them, and I think it's very relevant to the subject. Like, yeah, sure, let's say they plagiarized a number of songs, but is that disqualifying to the whole band's output or just those specific songs? Does that undermine the non-plagiarized songs too? And how much credit should they get for that collection (which most of their actual strongest material seems to belong to)?

 

[Ouroboros]

This 'plagiarism' stuff seems rather silly to me. Is it worth being concerned about? The concept of quotation or borrowing [or even stealing if you wish!] is ingrained in the musical tradition. That's how music is written. The entirety of the folk, jazz and blues traditions are basically just re-arranging, altering and borrowing the same source material. How many symphonies or string quartets were based on quotations from another piece? Hundreds, at least.

If you're going to strike somebody off the artistic record for lifting a riff or a melody or two, what are you going to be left with? Pretty much nothing. If you think music can be summoned up ex nihilo then I've got some bad news for you.

You know how Cormac McCarthy once said that "books are made out of books" meaning that everybody draws on the tradition that predates their work? Well it's the same thing in music - songs are made out of other songs.

Leave 'plagiarism' for the academics.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

This 'plagiarism' stuff seems rather silly to me. Is it worth being concerned about? The concept of quotation or borrowing [or even stealing if you wish!] is ingrained in the musical tradition. That's how music is written. The entirety of the folk, jazz and blues traditions are basically just re-arranging, altering and borrowing the same source material. How many symphonies or string quartets were based on quotations from another piece? Hundreds, at least.

If you're going to strike somebody off the artistic record for lifting a riff or a melody or two, what are you going to be left with? Pretty much nothing. If you think music can be summoned up ex nihilo then I've got some bad news for you.

You know how Cormac McCarthy once said that "books are made out of books" meaning that everybody draws on the tradition that predates their work? Well it's the same thing in music - songs are made out of other songs.

Leave 'plagiarism' for the academics.

Agreed 100% except for the last sentence. Lawyers are interested in plagiarism, academics are interested in intertextuality and the intricate weaving of arts.

 

[PK Cronin]

This 'plagiarism' stuff seems rather silly to me. Is it worth being concerned about? The concept of quotation or borrowing [or even stealing if you wish!] is ingrained in the musical tradition. That's how music is written. The entirety of the folk, jazz and blues traditions are basically just re-arranging, altering and borrowing the same source material. How many symphonies or string quartets were based on quotations from another piece? Hundreds, at least.

If you're going to strike somebody off the artistic record for lifting a riff or a melody or two, what are you going to be left with? Pretty much nothing. If you think music can be summoned up ex nihilo then I've got some bad news for you.

You know how Cormac McCarthy once said that "books are made out of books" meaning that everybody draws on the tradition that predates their work? Well it's the same thing in music - songs are made out of other songs.

Leave 'plagiarism' for the academics.

There's always a fine line between inspiration and stealing, in the art world it's usually considered stealing if you have on source of inspiration but inspiration if you have multiple. I don't know nearly enough about music history or music itself to comment on the likelihood of the Beatles having stolen things or just having been inspired, but I don't like when groups are held up on a pedestal for being so creative and innovative when it's quite obvious they borrowed or stole from so many others. Their acclaim likely comes from the platform they had, not necessarily because of their musical prowess.

 

[MoreOrr]

This is so easy...

#1 Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Others of mention:

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Losing My Religion - R.E.M.
Creep - Radiohead
Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
The Scientist - Coldplay
I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles
Counting Stars - OneRepublic --- (I like it, but it's overrated)
Beat It - Michael Jackson --- (The song's Ok, but way overrated)
Like a Prayer - Madonna
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Halleujah - original and all covers --- (And I'm a big Leonard Cohen fan)

I'm sure there are others which I just haven't thought of.