Modern Country Music – Are Their Influences Showing? [VIDEO]

Kids, in my line of work you end up hearing a lot of music.  A lot.  In fact, many times people I meet out in public will ask me about a song or a lyric or whatever.  The most common is "Who sings......?"   Well, because I do listen to music a lot for my job, I've noticed some things.  Now I'm not accusing anyone of anything,  and both sides of the argument are valid, but sometimes I hear influences for melodies or music in our modern hits.

I've got three examples here, you tell me what you think.

This first one is from 1988 - you probably remember this breakout hit from Tracy Chapman.

Pay attention to  the opening guitar riff.  Now listen to the new hit from Lee Brice, "Hard to Love".

That opening riff sounds a little familiar, don't you think?  Now the actual lyrics and the content of the songs are completely different.    The melody of the choruses are completely different, too.  And, it may be a subconscious thing, or it may be just me.

Here's another example, of two songs from the same genre this time.

That song is by Craig Morgan, and it was a hit a few years ago, I wanna say 2009. Listen to the opening guitar riff there.  Now listen to the current hit by Tyler Farr, "Hot Mess":

Again.... that riff is a little similar, to my ear.  I may be way off on this one.  This one is the most famous modern example, and one that many other people have noticed this other than me.   The song "Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons project was, to me, an influence to Lady Antebellum's huge hit, "Need You Now".

Now having said that, I don't think anybody "stole" anything.  But this kind of thing does overlap a lot in terms of music.  It seems like everything's been done already, right?  These artists are all great, and all quite talented individuals.  I think it's more of an homage to your musical influences, you know?  These things become like brain tape to you, you hear them so many times you don't even realize that you haven't heard it before.

Or, I could be out of my gourd.

What do you think?   Let me know in the comments what the samscratch is up with that.

Singingly yours,

Behka