The jazz Smoke on the Water is the first time I've liked that song.

Huh. No mention of Paul Simon basically thanking Los Lobos, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and everyone else for working on Graceland and then telling them to go fuck themselves because he's a huge star and who's going to believe THEM?

"Paul, it's pronounced zydeco. It's not zy decko, it's zydeco."

In defense of Deep Purple, transforming jazz riffs into metal rock riffs is not easy to do successfully and requires some creativity. Like 'stealing' a plot from Shakespeare and doing a comedy out of it, which has been done a thousand times, maybe a dozen times WELL. Semi-sleazy, yes, just not as bad as the others on the list.

This is hardly unique to pop music, though. I think it was Dmitri Shostakovich who pointed out that all composers borrow (or quote) from other composers' work; he claimed that he was merely the first one to openly admit to doing this.

I can't listen to Flight Test by the Flaming Lips because it's so close to Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" that my mind grinds its gears while it's remembering the lyrics of the older song and hearing different ones.

More fun ripoffs.