FEATURE:
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IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo, Modern Music and Plagiarism
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THE news story is a few days old now…
but I wanted to react to it. Not that there has been a major misstep or anything too serious. One of music’s brightest stars, Olivia Rodrigo, has been accused or plagiarism. This is a subject I have explored before. Lawsuits and cases have arisen through the years that involve major artists. In the case of Rodrigo, one can notice a similarity between artwork for her debut album, SOUR, and the cover for Hole’s Live Through This. There is also some musical ‘similarity’ between her and Elvis Costello. It is the latest case of an artist being accused of plagiarism. Whilst I do not think there is anything too blatant or obvious, it does reignite the debate about artists being inspired by music of the past and using it in their own way. Before coming to my thoughts, The Guardian reacted to the case of Olivia Rodrigo:
“When Elvis Costello jumped to the defence of the singer Olivia Rodrigo this week, he inadvertently exposed the faultlines in the debate over what constitutes pop plagiarism.
Rodrigo’s album Sour has dominated the mid-year best of lists with its lyrics about Gen-Z apathy, acrimonious breakups and “cathartic rage”, but she has also faced criticism.
Courtney Love accused her of “bad form” because artwork used to promote Rodrigo’s Sour Prom concert film looked very similar to the cover of Live Through This by Love’s band Hole.
Costello, meanwhile, said similarities between Rodrigo’s song Brutal and his 1978 hit Pump It Up were “fine by me”.
“It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did,” Costello wrote on Twitter, referencing his own musical touchstones, Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues and Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business.
The comparisons have reignited the perennial discussion about where inspiration stops and brazen imitation begins. Crispin Hunt, the former frontman of the Longpigs and director of the Ivor Novello awards, says Rodrigo should not be chastised for taking inspiration from her musical forebears.
“Part of the evolution of music is taking other ideas, it’s a communal experience. It’s essential, so I think Elvis Costello’s stance is very grown up and very honest, whereas Courtney Love’s point here is a bit childish,” he says”.
Katy Perry is one of the most-recent cases of supposed plagiarism. I know that artists have to protect their work and images. That is fine. When it comes to Olivia Rodrigo, she is merely nodding to various older sources rather than wholesale ripping them off. If she had stolen a song, hook or part of a track, then that would be a different matter. It is a dent that she does not need or deserve at such an early stage in her career. The fact that she is saluting (whether she meant to or not), Hole and artists like Courtney Love should be an honour – rather than her trying to steal something or replicate without permission.
IN THIS PHOTO: Katy Perry
I have said it before. We do not hear too many samples making their way into modern music. One reason is that getting clearance can be very expensive. Also, one might have to navigate a labyrinth of legal channels and processes to get a small snippet of another song okayed! I suppose it is only right. Though many artists are being priced out and made to jump through so many unnecessary hoops. Original songwriters deserve credit, but I think we could see changes so that sampling could flourish and artists/estates could just credit. For many artists, writing songs that are similar to others is a way of them paying tribute. In some cases, artists are dong it subconsciously. They may love a particular song. They then unwittingly or unknowingly write a song that is either similar or has elements of the other track. I think so many artists do this and, in most cases, it is not serious or meant to undermine or take from others. It is good that young artists like Olivia Rodrigo are bringing aspects and elements of older music to the modern time. It is only right that credit is given if there are obvious similarities to another track. Rather than artists and labels having to pay millions or given a huge amount of royalties to someone else, including amended songwriting credits (where songwriters of those songs are included) is right. That would ensure that there are no legal issues.
A lot of so-called plagiarism cases are taken to court and we hear massive sums of money thrown around! It does seem like estates and songwriters are after the money rather than justice. As there are so many artists releasing songs all the time, one cannot police them all to ensure that there are no copyright problems or similarities to other tracks. New artists have every right to take a portion of another track and remake it. As Elvis Costello said, they (artists) are sort of taken ‘broken pieces’ and putting them into a ‘new toy’. For decades, we can look at tracks and albums and how, when you listen hard (or not in some cases!), there is more than a striking resemblance to something else. If I were an artist, unless someone else was sampling my work verbatim or copying a track, I would be honoured to hear some similarities. It shows that modern artists are aware of older songs and are sort of sampling in a new way. I do agree that the issue of credit is complex and needs to be tackled. Maybe Rodrigo will give Costello a songwriting credit on brutal. He is cool about it though, if a new song is massive because its hook or chorus leans heavily on another track, the original author might have case to feel they should get a credit. It gets murkier when it comes to royalties and what share of the pie they get. We will always see and hear fresh tracks where one can detect a blast from the past. If there were hugely tight rules and legal boundaries, then that would hit creativity and create fear – where artists are terrified they will be sued all the time. Good on Olivia Rodrigo for remodelling a classic slice of Costello – Courtney Love will just have to accept the fact that Rodrigo has not ripped her off in photo/image terms. Whilst plagiarism is serious and not something to be encouraged, I do think that too many people (artists or someone else) are calling artists out…
PHOTO CREDIT: @ekrull/Unsplash
WITHOUT just cause.