If you’ve ever looked at the songwriting credits for Coldplay’s Talk from their 2005 album X&Y, you’ll have seen names of people not in Coldplay. That’s because the signature melody of the song originally came from this 1981 song from Kraftwerk. And don’t worry, there weren’t any legal shenanigans over the use over this sequence of notes. Chris Martin knew exactly what he stumbled upon and immediately asked Kraftwerk if Coldplay could use it.
Kraftwerk granted permission (obviously) and have reaped some serious bank. Not only did X&Y sell over 13 million copies, Talk was issued as a single and was a hit on its own. Kraftwerk just stayed in Germany, cashing the cheques.
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