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Was Konji Kondo inspired by music or a plagiarist? Discuss.

S

Sybb

Banned
The original Super Mario Bros. tune is, at best, an "inspiration". The Zelda fairy tune, the Mario dungeon tune and the Starman tune are blatant copies of other people's works:



After listening to that video, all respect I ever had for Koji Kondo disappeared. The guy was a musical fraud, especially considering how much Nintendo's games sold, and how popular his copies became compared to the original songs.
 
GrayFoxPL

GrayFoxPL

Member
Will Nintendo ever get copyright claims?

Probably not.

Mario Mean GIF
 
Kholinar

Kholinar

Banned
Haven't watched the video so I can't verify, but even if the original tunes are the product of plagiarism, he's more than made up for it with all subsequent Nintendo titles.
 
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FingerBang

FingerBang

Member
No, I don't think he's a fraud. Yes, he took inspiration from those songs, but he added his own variations.
Taking a riff or a short section from a song to make a different song isn't plagiarism, it's how most music is made. Put those tracks side by side and listen to them, they're not the same songs.

Also, it's not that those are the only songs he made. What you're saying would be true if that was true for ALL the songs he wrote, but that isn't the case.
And I would add, even if the guy was not a good composer and copied all of them, being able to choose which songs goes where is not as easy as you thinkg. Those songs are legendary and still hold up after almost 40 years.
 
S

Sybb

Banned
FingerBang said:
No, I don't think he's a fraud. Yes, he took inspiration from those songs, but he added his own variations.
Taking a riff or a short section from a song to make a different song isn't plagiarism, it's how most music is made. Put those tracks side by side and listen to them, they're not the same songs.

Also, it's not that those are the only songs he made. What you're saying would be true if that was true for ALL the songs he wrote, but that isn't the case.
And I would add, even if the guy was not a good composer and copied all of them, being able to choose which songs goes where is not as easy as you thinkg. Those songs are legendary and still hold up after almost 40 years.
Click to expand...
The Starman song is a blatant copy. It's not "inpired". The Mario 1-2 song is also a blatant copy. As is the Zelda fairy tune. I can agree the main Mario theme is "inspired", if I'm feeling kind.
 
ZehDon

ZehDon

Gold Member
Sigh.

Time stamps because the OP is low effort click-bait hyperbole complete with CAPS LOCK words to grab attention:

2:23: Comparisons to the Legend of Zelda dungeon music. The guitar strings also bear a resemblance to the Diablo 2 music in my opinion. Not all that similiar.
2:51: Comparisons to the Mario Brothers theme. The inspiration is clear in the initial bar, but Kondo's music moves into its own pretty clearly from there. Welcome to music inspiration 101.
3:28: Comparisons to the Star Theme from Mario Brothers. I don't really hear this one at all, to be honest.
4:08: Comparisons to Zelda's Fairy Fountain theme. I guess I can see how it might be perceived as inspiration, but it's not all that similar. Goes on to compare it to the overworld theme for Mario Bros 3's water world... and I'm still struggling to hear more than one or two notes the same. James Horner has ripped off his own scores quite blatantly, so Kondo taking inspiration from himself for different pieces feels par for the course, frankly.
5:19: Comparisons to Mario's Underground theme. Yeah, this one I can hear almost exactly - the entire first two bars are virtually identical to that iconic piece.

So, 1/5. The video concludes with "No art exists in isolation, all artists willingly or unwillingly pick up bits from all over the place" and gives Kondo the benefit of the doubt as it goes on to quote Kondo as saying "Sometimes I end up writing things that sound too much like other people's songs, and I have to begrudgingly re-write those". The OP really needs to actually watch the videos they post, because the only person throwing around "KOJI KOND was a FRAUD" is the OP.

edit:
I'll never pass up an opportunity to post Axis of Awesome's 4 Chords:
 
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McCheese

McCheese

Member
Wait until you find out the legendary Guile's theme is just a "cheap trick" track rip-off.

 
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ZehDon

ZehDon

Gold Member
Sybb said:
Not surprisingly, the Nintendo Defense Force are the first ones on site to do their thing. I hope this thread develops better when more people see it in a day or so.
Click to expand...
*Accuses a prolific artist of fraud because they watched a 7 minute YouTube video and doesn't understand anything*
*Is corrected with common sense and basic examples of how this is not fraud*
*Insults everyone because they didn't get the immediate response they wanted to their incorrect, baseless, and deeply uneducated accusations of criminal fraud"

🤡
 
U

UnNamed

Banned
Every composer has their own background, the songs and music they listened and liked and contributed to create a specific sound. At some point it's plausible a composer con copy another track not doing intentionally.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Very few composers write things that are utterly brand new and sound nothing like anything ever written before. That's just not how it works, it's really not possible. People are always inspired by what came before them.

That said, yeah, a few of those are a bit too 1:1 with the originals. But I still wouldn't really call it plagiarism as such. It's chord progressions, bass lines, licks, it's not like he has ripped off entire songs.
 
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01011001

01011001

Banned
Sybb said:
Not surprisingly, the Nintendo Defense Force are the first ones on site to do their thing. I hope this thread develops better when more people see it in a day or so.
Click to expand...

no the "we have a brain" force arrived to tell you that it is nothing new that people take snippets of songs as inspiration and often even end up using riffs and small melody pieces either consciously or subconsciously in their own songs.

the mainstream pop genre is full of such examples, many rock bands did it and rap is basically build around the idea of "sampling" other songs.

Daft Punk is also basically just a group that remixes existing songs... are they frauds? almost none of their iconic songs had an original melody

qnd the examples given in the video are maybe 5-6 notes that are taken from other songs, usually not even exactly the same ones.
 
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Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Sybb said:
OK, so this is one of these places where mods go in and subjectively change text as the please. Fuck off, I'm out.
Click to expand...
Sybb, buddy. The mods helped you form a thread that encourages discussion. The original title was clickbaity.
 
K

Kimahri

Banned
Sybb said:
Not surprisingly, the Nintendo Defense Force are the first ones on site to do their thing. I hope this thread develops better when more people see it in a day or so.
Click to expand...
How about you lose that "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude?

There are people in here already who clearly know more about music theory than you do, what this video illustrates is not at all uncommon. It happens all the time. I've written stuff myself that I've later discovered sounds very similar to other stuff.

Sometimes you hear something, it might not hit right away, but it gets stuck somewhere in your subconscious, then later it bursts to the surface again, maybe a bit altered, it's not the same, you're not even aware there was an original inspiration for it.

Look into scale patterns, there are things that are very common in music that gets used and reused and repeated over and over in different shapes and forms. Doesn't mean someone is a fraud.

Have a look at that 4 chord songs video someone else posted. Also, feel free to google "12 songs that sound exactly the same" if you dare.
 
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NeoIkaruGAF

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Sybb said:
Not surprisingly, the Nintendo Defense Force are the first ones on site to do their thing. I hope this thread develops better when more people see it in a day or so.
Click to expand...
LOL, this is old news, OP.

Delve into this a little more and you'll be calling any Japanese video game OST until the mid-90s a plagiarism, and their composer a fraud. Did you know about Ken's Theme and Top Gun's ending song?
 
OrionNebula

OrionNebula

Member
He definitely dropped out of my mostly revolving top 10 best game composers list when I found this out, more than 10-15 years ago, now, never to be back in again, and never will

Not saying he’s not talented, but a lot of his original memorable tracks are clearly hacks
 
Hawks Eclipse

Hawks Eclipse

Member
Yoshichan said:
Sybb, buddy. The mods helped you form a thread that encourages discussion. The original title was clickbaity.
Click to expand...
Oh, that explains why I had some whiplash when going from the title to the OP. The mod misspelled Koji as Konji though; needs more copying and less inspiration.
 
L

LazyParrot

Member
I mean, it's not like most of those are genius level tracks or anything. They're considered legendary not because of how good they are on their own, but because they happened to be in games that ended up becoming cultural icons.

This sort of stuff was rampant in the 80s. Back then Japan had the same reputation China does today when it comes to plagiarism and trademark infringement. They simply didn't give a shit.
 
gtrwll

gtrwll

Member
I reckon that if there was a basis for plagiarism accusations, the parties involved would probably have sued in these 30-40 years since the games have been available.
 
McCheese

McCheese

Member
Hawks Eclipse said:
Excuse me for being "that guy" but it's Ken's theme that sounds similar to Mighty Wings.

Here's Guile's Theme (goes with everything) to refresh your memory.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, got mixed up.

Guile was based from goose from topgun and that track was intended to be Guile's theme, which is why it's a copy of a Topgun track. Same as how M.Bison was originally boxer who was a parody of Mike Tyson. They swapped song and name around before release.
 
strange headache

strange headache

Banned
The vast majority of modern chart music is comprised of the same 3 chords. There is more variation between Konji Kondo's music and his inspiration than between most pop songs.
So no, he is not a fraud and certainly not a plagiarist.
 
Hawks Eclipse

Hawks Eclipse

Member
McCheese said:
Ah yes, got mixed up.

Guile was based from goose from topgun and that track was intended to be Guile's theme, which is why it's a copy of a Topgun track. Same as how M.Bison was originally boxer who was a parody of Mike Tyson. They swapped song and name around before release.
Click to expand...
Yea maybe they did combine some inspiration from Top Gun seeing as Guile is a soldier whose stage is an airforce base. (Though I don't know if that has anything to do with the soundtrack's possible inspiration.)

However, in terms of his look the inspiration is more obviously from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (quote is from https://capcom.fandom.com/wiki/Guile):
In an interview with producer Noritaka Funamizu, he reveals that Guile's overall appearance was modeled after
Jean Pierre Polnareff, a character from the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.[1] Guile's page in Street Fighter X Tekken Artworks goes into detail, explaining that early designs included Polnareff's vertical, yet modest hairstyle, but at the time the sprites were being made for Street Fighter II, the pixel artist jokingly stretched Guile's hair out to the sides. The team found it amusing and decided to give him "the always distinctive Stroheim look" instead. Noritaka also explains that Guile's name was derived from Polnareff's archenemy, J. Geil, though this was apparently the result of a mix up from the development staff at the time.
Click to expand...
Once you see what Stroheim looks like you'll probably agree.

Yea I'm aware of the M.Bison name swap due to not wanting to get into legal issues in the states. You should note that the names in Japan remain to this day, as originally intended:
Dictator = Vega
Boxer = M(ike). Bison
Claw = Balrog
​
 
hemo memo

hemo memo

Gold Member
Wow that Friendship one haha. But anyway, this is how ALL without exceptions how the creative industry works. It is inspirations from inspirations from inspirations. Knowingly or unknowingly. You can’t have creative gold out of nothing.
 
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