It's not a rip off. You're talking about a chord progression that has been used in hundreds of thousands of songs. The only reason bon jovis is similar is because of the arrangement. The acoustic guitar with electric lead. The melodies are totally different.
And technically even the chord progression is different.
RT is C Eminor A minor G
iBSN is D F#minor G A
And I don't mean the different keys.
RT is 1-3minor-6minor-5
IBSN is 1-3minor-4-5
Similar but different
It's the 1-3minor you're hearing.
But the thing is .. there are only 11 chords. 22 if you include minors, but there's not that many chords.
The combinations are not endless.
There are thousands of songs that have the RT and IBSN chord progressions.
Hell Ive written a dozen songs with each.
Plagiarism, i believe has to be 70% of the original song used.
They just have similar chords and arrangements but the melodies are totally different.
That's why bon jovi wouldn't win plagiarism on heaven on earth.
The chorus chord progression is the same, but the melodies are totally different and the entire rest of heaven on earth is totally different.
And kind of awesome btw.
Chordwise, Heaven on Earth is really creative and punky. You'd think the Gogos wrote it.
But it's super pop arrangement hides it.
Honestly, when a song becomes a hit, every label has their songwriters take the chord progression and write new melodies to it and that's the next 5 years of singles for every artist.
Truly.
Like in the 50s every song was
C Aminor F (or Dminor) G
1-6minor-4 (or 2minor) 5
In the 90s & 2000s, ESPECIALLY IN COUNTRY, every song was
C-G-Aminor-F
1-5-6minor-4
(This is the chord progression in that video someone else posted where they sing 101 different songs while playing the same 4 chords over n over
I myself have a dozen of those songs, too.
In fact, my claim to fame as a musical artist is that I have a song with a chord progression I have NEVER EVER heard in popular music of any kind.
And I wrote an additional 5 songs using it and variations of it and no I won't tell you what it is until I get the hit.
I'd I don't it will be lost forever until some other artist finds it
But to give you an example
Seeing the RT chord progression, this song of mine is the exact same progression. In a different key, but it's totally different. I wasn't aware they were the same till just now.
But I could name 100 hits that use it.
I will admit, hearing them back to back, RT and IBSN do sound too similar.
It could have been intentional but it really could be a coincidence.
Either way it's fine because that's a famous chord progression that's been used a million times. It wasn't original when RT came out.
It wasn't original when I wrote this.
https://youtu.be/PV8hkRwL6TU
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