Did Sega STEAL Nintendo music? 

Song Similarity : 2:28 - Koopa Road 4:31 - Crisis City

tldr: these two songs share ONE chord progession That's it, I saved you six minutes of your life

Five fucking minutes of padding just to get to "Koopa Road sounds kind of like Crisis City if you squint".

I've straight up never seen someone make so many mistakes in explaining music while not even actually explaining the music

I'm no musician, but calling these songs identical because they both have a section with 4 notes linearly escalating upwards is extremely farfetched

Dude went through the whole mario and sonic lore to show us two songs

That's called a chord progression. You can't steal one.

“First, we’re gonna need a little history” Why?

Imma just say this: nobody owns a chord progression. This kinda thing happens all the time in pop music.

Actually you don't need to be a music student to know they're not the same thing 😂😂😂

It’s almost like there are thousands of other songs with the same progression

This video is like trying to reach the minimum word count in an essay.

This entire video is the definition of "He's a little confused, but he's got the spirit"

as a musician, the songs are 100% NOT the same.

Bro knew how awful this was and thus disabled the like button EDIT: And put comments on newest first by default to avoid showing good comments

2:28 Koopa's Road 4:31 Crisis City ~The Flame ~ Skyscraper ~ Whirlwind ~ Tornado~ nah, it's just you imagine what would happen if every song was accused of plagiarism for using 4 similar notes from another melody.

This dude just discovered chord progression

As a music student in high school band, I can CONFIDENTLY SAY that this is a HUGE STRETCH to say that SEGA copied a 4 note chromatic that just so happened to sound “similar” to Mario64. “Not placing blame” my a-double-s.

one of the biggest wastes of time ever

As a person with functioning ears, the songs are 100% NOT the same.

This video took nearly 5 minutes to get to the point and it was embarrassingly a stretch

A 6 minute video on how ONE song happens to sound similar is crazy

Hey, as a musician, I've come here to say that its very likely that its not a "stolen motif" Its a very simple note progression in the minor scale that gives a feeling of anticipation or possible danger. Hell I've used it a few times myself. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find it in songs for other games as well. Great video either way

I actually had to check if this was uploaded on April Fools. It's obvious that Nintendo doesn't just *own* a chord progression. Where even is the argument here?

Five notes going up 😱 what a very unique and unheard of thing to do

Pianist of 10 years here. I see where you’re finding the similarities, but there’s some big problems in the analysis. 1) Songs use the same/similar chord progression all the time. Crisis city and loops road happen to share the same progression - you’ll see this occur in pop songs, game songs, etc.. There are even notes/chord progressions so popular, they’re given names (for example, the Royal Road Progression or the Dies Irae melody). This isn’t a good way to determine if a song is stealing from another. 2) Other than this chord progression, the songs appear quite unique from each other. If Crisis City had used the same melody as in Koopa Road, then this would make more sense. However, the songs are unique in their own respective ways. It’s cool to see the similarities between the two songs, but you need to consider more factors before making a conclusion like this. Nonetheless, I hope you continue to make neat musical observations like this and improve your analyses.

“If you look at the sheet music they’re indistinguishable” crisis city is 3 octaves moving stepwise, koppa road is a sustained 5th in the bass with 4ths moving stepwise on top. There are some similarities but they are not indistinguishable.

Never let bro cook again😭

It’s called a *Chord progression* That’s kinda how music works

BLUD IS ONTO NOTHING 🔥🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️💀‼️‼️‼️

Bro thought he discovered something special 💀

You can't steal a chord progression, otherwise all of jazz would be theft

It’s a similar movement, but I hate to point out that this motif is used all over the place. It’s literally an ascending minor scale. This is used in rock music as well along with several other video games. It’s also used as the intro riff to His World

Bro it’s just the same chord progression, pop music does the same exact thing.

In this case, these are both chord progession simalarities, and because of how finite short chord progressions are, it is impossible to copyright something like this, all these songs have in common is a 5 chord progression, which is most likely coincidence, and even if it is copied it would be impossible to sue over.

Sega didn't copy Nintendo with anything. 🙄 what is it with Ninweirdo fantards coming to HATE on Sega for no go reason??? 😂😅

4:31 the part you're actually here for instead of 4 minutes of filler and the answer is no, they didn't steal it, it's just a coincidence

It’s a chord progression you’ll hear pretty much anywhere if you pay enough attention. It’s just how music works, chord patterns will be used by any and every musician. Listen to Flying Battery, Inkwell Hell from Cuphead, and James Bond’s theme.

The note progression is a lot more common than you might think. In fact, the soundtracks for The Matrix movies all have instances of this note progression.

The content is located at 2:16 - 2:50 and 4:28 - 5:24.

If he feels the urge to make a whole video after finding 4 notes that happen to be almost identical in 2 unrelated games then he’d have a stroke if he heard just about any 2 songs from undertale

It's just a I, II, III, IV scale with whole notes. Crisis City is in Cm and Koopa Road is in Dm.

I like Sonic Better than Mario... there, I said it. Are you going to say I copy nintendo too??? Lol

Nintendo doesnt own chord progressions bro

Yfw you hear a normal chord progression:

just to clarify, CHORD PROGRESSIONS ARE NOT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, JESUS CHRIST

"oh my goodness gracious 4 notes going up in pitch every bar in another song!!!! obviously stolen!!!!!!!!"

I dont like being rude, but this is probably one of the worst made videos ive seen, It provides useless background information and causes the main topic of the video to be at the end and like other people have said, the songs are not at all the same, many songs use the same chord progression but still have their own melodies. Also this is just the awful Ed Sheeran trial.

Man does not know chord progressions exist

this video literally made no sense and had no reason to be made lmao

It is literally just a really common leitmotif. I bet there are a lot of songs that has the same progression heck actually I'm learning to play trumpet I believe I played a song that had a similar part to that.

i absolutely love the fact that literally half of the video is just him rambling.

I hate how badly the Sonic games and other properties are treated when people put so much into these. Like the music and animation

Bro set comments to recent LMAO

the most awful comparison ive seen yet funnier part is how he got comment bots. ive spotted multiple.

If people got copyrighted for using a non original chord progression 99% of composers would be criminals

Buddy forgot coincidences were real

I don't think Sega would intentionally skirt causing copyright problems, and if Nintendo felt they were being copied, they likely would have already gone after Sega for it.

Quite frankly, to say that a shared intro chord progression (which is, to be clear, what this is) constitutes "stealing" is stunning. Haven't you seen Axis of Awesome's "4 Chords" vid? Or listened to electroswing? Don't get me wrong! I love being included in things; I just want to make sure that I'm actually there.

As a non musician I can confirm, Nintendo did not invent rising notes in that scale. They just share that scale, dude. Your def overthinking it.

As wise musician Will Wood once said "the nature of song writing is that there are only 12 fuckin' notes!"

Michael Jordan 1996 Space Jam type reaching on this one

It's just a simple progression that goes up the natural minor scale. The progression may only contain fifths and no major/minor thirds, but it would simply be a i-ii-III-IV progression or something similar.

"getting to the point of the video" challenge (impossible)

People find any reason to make videos

You do realize that chord progressions can sound similar without being stolen, right? These songs are barely similar at all. Even the part with similar chords is a different tempo and instrument. I honestly dont even think this was worthy of a video lmao

1) You can't copyright a chord progression. 2) These aren't even the same chord progression. By this logic. Take On Me by Aha and Don't Stop Believing by Journey are the same song.

Not to be annoying or anything, but you do realize this is part of the song is quite literally just a directly ascending progression, D-E-F-G, and I guarantee you you can hear this very simple progression in many other songs. Hell, I can even think of Nintendo songs that use that melody, perhaps one of the Castle themes is what I’m thinking. Also, while yes, the main notes may be the same, they still have different, (mind I am not very musically inclined) backing notes for the progression. I’m sure this simple note progression sounded foreboding and the composers liked it. Not to burst your bubble, but seriously. This isn’t a big deal. When my memory decides to kick in, I’ll put some songs with the same progression in the replies section of this comment.

Nintenerds these days lol

it's a pretty common "buildup" progression used in a lot of compositions, all pretty unrelated to each other. and in video games in particular i can point out quite a few such as Meltdown 2 from Cave Story, and Cutscene 4 from the PS1 Cyborg Kuro-chan game. It is essentially a composing tool more so than a... melody to be taken from something.

Remember, when any article title contains a question, the answer is usually "No". So it is here. Silly argument, clickbait title. That's a "no" from me.

Blud is onto NOTHING 🥶🥶🗣️🔥‼️

Not even close.

5:23 _No_ *Crisis City:* C, D, Eb, F *Koopa's Road:* AD, BE, CF, DG with DA throughout in the bass. They're not even the same notes. Also... Crisis city uses single notes with octaves. Koopa's Road uses chordioids + dissonance. These are just partial scales, or stepwise motion. It's very common. You do need to be a music student apparently.

Funny thing about songwriters, many draw inspiration from a competitive source. Like how Pokemon Black and White had Celestial Tower/Dragonspiral Tower/Giant Chasm theme sounding very similar to Chrono Trigger's Secret of the Forest.

as someone who knows an ok amount about theory, it's a common chord progression. definitely a coincidence. not in a rude way, but i dont think you need to know any theory to figure that out either

This guy feels like a half-baked, Dollar store version of Game Theory

It's such a simple chord progression, in a different key, different style... I'm sure there is other music out there with similar things (Mega Man 1, Wily Stage 2). It really doesn't sound like copying at all. I've heard many similar bits in lots of different music. You want something that was copied? Hear "A Searing Struggle" from Ys III, and "Forgotten Path" from Jim Power.

the best part of the video was when you made marge simpson out of clay, the rest felt like filler

As someone who’s a musician, I can tell you that this is a very basic start for many songs. Just 4 whole ascending notes. You said those notes are basically the same when it’s just the progression that’s the same. Crisis city’s chords are 3 c’s in a different octive while Koopa road uses a more dynamic progression. They both do their job at setting up the song. I’ve played many video games and performed many songs, you hear songs that have a very similar feel to it or even the same progression. For example, the American in Paris Suite has a progression that’s very similar to certain Star Wars songs yet it isn’t stealing. Stealing is just simply copying a peice of music for a part of a big part of song. Not to get confused with sampling or plagiarism where the line gets blurry.

Did Lemonkake Studios STEAL the name from Lemoncak3?

I mean, it's a simple 4 chord rise. It's more shocking to not find MORE things like this.

One thing you need to understand about music is that there is a finite amount of chord progressions out there (at least on the 12-temperament system). Things are bound to be repeated. Although the parts are similar, one can't say they're copies. The chord progression works very well in both songs, and adds the impact they need. This chord progression specifically is used a TON by a LOT of people making intense songs. Now I am not saying all of this as criticism, but rather for you to learn something new. I bet that if you look in other big games, movies, etc. You'll find that very exact progression.

Well, in music, there's one thing called chord progressions, and a lot of songs use the exact same chord proggression. If the main melody was similar i could consider this an option, but the only clear similarity between these two songs are the chord progression you mentioned, because if you listen to crisis city, you'll notice the melody completely changes after a while, and doesn't sound similar to koopa road anymore. also a curiosity that no one cares about: they're not in the same key, koopa's road is in D minor, while crisis city is in C minor lol.

Well, considering that most pop song are using the same chords / chord progression, and are still not considered copies of the others, I think we can let this slip

It’s literally a scale, you can barely call it a motif. (A scale is like (A,B,C,E,F,G) You can find many songs of today using a scale chord progression let alone pieces from orchestral pieces way way way older than these background music. If Nintendo were to try to sue Sega for it, it wouldn’t work because it’s literally a scale. Also according to the photo in your video, Crisis City is written in Bb major and koopa road in C major. Notice how many people are commenting that they’re similar to other songs? It’s scale

its a chord progression, it's not like they share a melody

Crisis city still clears and is more of a banger especially in gens 😅

it's just a simple walk up the minor scale. 1-2-b3-4

It’s a basic chord progression actually. It is similar but not really copied.

Sonic Team chose the levels in Generations due to polls they made for the fans to choose their favorite levels from each game btw

Nintendromes when they finaly crawl out of their basement and see the sun for the first time (How did the universe dare to copy Super Mario Bros 3's evil sun): 😮😮

Okay imma stop here at 6:17, this is not unique to Mario & Sonic and happens in countless other pieces of music, it’s more common than you may think, and it happens because as with all things there’s a known ‘formula’ that’s proven to work that just gets remixed over and over. And as for Generations, Crisis City was actually down to a popularity fan poll, the stage just so happened to get the most votes, so SEGA & Sonic Team just went with that when deciding on what Stages to include, it was really a great time to be a Sonic Fan around that time.

You are exagerating this, chords cannot be copyrighted only melodies can. In this chord it's just 4 notes going up and that's it. You'd find this chord progression in SO MANY SONGS you might as well claim everybody stole from nintendo. It's such a basic and over-used chord progression you can just pick up FL Studio press Z E R T in your keyboard with whatever instrument, and bam you got the same sound.

Ahhhh the infamous "Copy" Card Nintendoo-doo love to play 🤣🤣🤣🤣

imma just say, sega didnt really steal, you cant steal a chord/note progression, but i like the video anyway, i never noticed the connection lol

Dude it's FOUR NOTES THAT ARE IN A VERY BASIC PATTERN

Clickbait alert

They simply share the same chord progression, another example of this would be the “Peaches” song from the Mario movie using the same chord progression in Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. However its also just generally a popular chord progression, so it doesn’t make sense to compare it specifically to the most popular song that used it.

....this could of been a 1 minute video.