Yono has informed that the 4 riffs have some similarites, but that there are significant difference. With some help from Yono I made the table below to describe the riffs. They are all 4 chord riffs and have the same rhythm for the most part. In the center is rough description of whether the next chord is up or down (in the progression of four) and on the right are the actual chords. I stole the chords for the riffs from the Online Guitar Archive. You need the up/down cues to tell which way the chords are going, since the A-F-C in Offspring and Bush are actually different.
| Nirvana | up-down-up | Fsus4-Bb-Absus4-Db |
| Offspring | up-down-down | A-F-C-G |
| Boston | up-down-down | C-G-Em-D |
| Bush | down-up-up | A-F-C-D |
If you have no clue what Absus4 means, go here. If you don't know what Bb means, the little b is supposed to be the flat symbol. If you don't know what flat means in this context, then this might be over your head. It's nearly over mine.
So looking at this table, we can tell that the riffs are arguably different, and we'll never know if anyone of the groups actually lifted the riffs from another. The order that the songs came out was Boston (1976), Nirvana (1991), then Offspring and Bush at about the same time (1994). Given how big Nirvana was in the early 90s, I'd be surprised if Offspring and Bush weren't influenced by one of the biggest songs of the decade, Smells Like Teen Spirit (especially Bush).
More comments from guitar knowledgeable people is welcome...
Posted by ramk at June 5, 2003 05:16 AM