Joe Satriani Sues Coldplay

Joe Satriani recently popped up on Goggle’s Hot Trends today, which is exciting news in itsself (if you don’t know who he is, hit yourself multiple times in the face and click the link above).  It turns out that Satch is suing Coldplay because of the distinct rip-off job they did on one of their songs.  There’s no questioning which one of the acts are the better group of musicians (go listen to Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien for proof), but the question now is who’s going to win the lawsuit?

There’s been a video comparison of Joe Satriani’s If I Could Fly and Coldplay’s Viva La Vida up since a couple of days after the latter’s album dropped earlier this year, and to be honest, Chris Martin and Co. are going to handing over their writing credits on this one. Considering both the chord progression and the vocal melody match up perfectly with Satch’s guitar licks, I’m assuming this won’t even reach court, but who knows.

Grammy nominees Coldplay have been sued by rock guitarist Joe Satriani, who claims the band’s song Viva La Vida uses one of his riffs. In court papers filed in Los Angeles on Thursday, he said the song used “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly.

The vocal line of the chorus of Coldplay’s Vida La Vida does appear to follow one of the riffs from Satriani’s If I Could Fly — watch the video above to hear the case rather convincingly presented. (Let’s forgive the poor punctuation.)

In a more positive light, I’m stoked that Satriani is getting any form of attention.

Tags: Coldplay, If I could fly, joe satriani, lawsuit, suing, Viva La Vida