Guns N' Roses Accused Of Stealing 'Sweet Child O' Mine'

Ar-Pharazon

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Guns N' Roses are being accused of stealing one of their biggest hits. The Australian music website Max TV (via Consequence of Sound) recently noticed that Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" sounds suspiciously similar to the song 'Unpublished Critics" by Aussie band Australian Crawl, which was released six years earlier.

The publication points out that "Sweet Child O' Mine' has 'the same chugging chord progression, a similarly-sweeping lead break, the verse melody, and the elongated one-syllable vocal in the chorus" as Australian Crawl's song, which went to No. 1 in Australia.

Australian Crawl broke up in 1986, a year before Guns N' Roses recently Appetite For Destruction, which featured the track in question, but as COS notes, both albums were released in the United States on Geffen.

Funnily enough, Australian Crawl's singer James Reymar has acknowledged the similarities between the tracks before, but doesn't seem interested in getting into court for this. So no, we probably won't have a "Blurred Lines" level lawsuit anytime soon.

Instead Reymar seems to be leaning in to the whole thing, even playing "Sweet Child O' Mine" live from time to time. Check out both songs here.

Another case of "you waited how f-ing long to bring this up???"

If a "chugging chord progression" is enough to make this a rip-off, then every 3 chord progression is a rip of of, say, Paranoid, right?
 

Sharp Dressed Man

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Funnily enough, Australian Crawl's singer James Reymar has acknowledged the similarities between the tracks before, but doesn't seem interested in getting into court for this

Kudos to him for that, although he probably knows that there hardly is a case anyway. :D
 

That 70s Guy

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Similar? yes

But I doubt that Slash & Axl knew anything about this obscure Australian band.
 

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