If you vamp on I and IV chords on a guitar in a rock or rockish band for any length of time, there's a good chance you'll eventually find yourself ripping off, consciously or not, one of the 20,000 or so rock or rockish bands before you who also have a song that starts with a I-IV guitar vamp. Kind of sort of like if you bake a chocolate cake, you may discover that the first few steps in your recipe will be similar to the first few steps in the recipes of 20,000 chocolate cake bakers who came before you. There are only so many ways you can start. In the case of "PRETTY BITCHIN'," a breezy, pretty bitchin', life's-been-good groove on MIRANDA LAMBERT's new album, WILDCARD, the rather obvious reference point is the BEATLES' "I'VE GOT A FEELING," which may or not have been in the mind of Lambert, her three co-writers and her band when they first played it. One imagines they were simply strumming G and C chords, as you do. (The Beatles song is a step higher, in A.) At some point, presumably, they realized what they were doing, had a laugh, and decided to incorporate the laugh into the song by adding an electric guitar break that quotes a well-known bit from "I've Got a Feeling." Haha. Great. Debt acknowledged and paid. The two songs are otherwise not very similar. No need for further discussion. Certainly no need for lawyers to get involved, which is a thing that's been happening with some frequency lately, as you may have noticed. I'm talking to you, gentlemen of YELLOWCARD. And gentlemen of Yellowcard's lawyers. And others like you. And judges and jurors who one day may or may not find themselves agreeing with you. My totally non-lawyerly rule of thumb: If you're not sure you're being plagiarized, you probably aren't. If you think someone might be paying homage to you, you're free to thank them. If you think you've never plagiarized someone, you're probably wrong. Pay it forward. Also, I just thought I'd mention there's a new Miranda Lambert album and, like all Miranda Lambert albums, it's pretty bitchin'. And she definitely once plagiarized STEVE EARLE, and as soon as someone mentioned it she said, "Oops, you're right," and they worked it out. Because when you know, you know. When you don't know, just call it rock and roll... It's FRIDAY and that means there's also new music from SUDAN ARCHIVES, MICHAEL KIWANUKA, EARL SWEATSHIRT, GANG STARR, KREPT & KONAN, TAEYEON, HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH, NICKY JAM, PABLLO VITTAR, ROD WAVE, JON BATISTE, BOOKER T. JONES, UMI, COLD WAR KIDS, JEFF GOLDBLUM & THE MILDRED SNITZER ORCHESTRA, BRIA SKONBERG, VETIVER, A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN, TURNOVER, KELE OKEREKE, GOLDROOM, DDG, STALLEY, MONTGOMERY GENTRY, JEFF LYNNE'S ELO, JOSH ROUSE, the MAVERICKS, BLACK VIOLIN, OMNI, APOLLO BROWN, CUP (NELS CLINE & YUKA HONDA) and YELAWOLF. Plus: the ARIANA GRANDE-produced CHARLIE's ANGELS soundtrack and, from the vaults, a 25th anniversary edition of REM's MONSTER and Vol. 15 of BOB DYLAN's Bootleg Series, TRAVELIN' THRU, covering 1967-69 and highlighting his work with JOHNNY CASH... ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS' documentary THE APOLLO opens in Los Angeles today and launches on HBO next Wednesday. Amazing footage of ELLA FITZGERALD, BILLIE HOLIDAY, JAMES BROWN, LAURYN HILL and more, coupled with timely and timeless stories about the Harlem theater's essential place in black music and black culture... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN introduces two of his favorite films as a guest programmer Saturday afternoon on TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES... Congrats to MOLLY NEUMAN, who's been named president of the royalties-collection platform SONGTRUST... RIP ROLANDO PANERAI, CHOU WEN-CHUNG and TOM DRAPER.