Young singer has been accused of copying several of her songs; one of them even added credits to Paramore
It’s not now that Olivia Rodrigo faces accusations, not always formalized, of plagiarism. The recent single “Vampire”, released last June, it drew comparisons with songs by One Direction (“If I Could Fly”), Sabrina Carpenter (“Because I Liked a Boy”) and even John Lennon (“Imagine”).
His first album, Sour (2021), raised so many allegations of copying that the authorship of one of the songs, “Good 4 U”, began to add the names of Hayley Williams and Josh Farro, respectively vocalist and former guitarist of Paramore. The reason? The duo composed “Misery Business”, song that would have served as “excessive inspiration” for the hit by Rodrigo.
It didn’t stop there: Courtney Love claimed that the cover of Sour is copied from disk Live Through This (1994), by his band, the Hole. And there were those who pointed out similarities between “Brutal”, track that opens the album, and “Pump It Up” by Elvis Costello. However, through the Twitter, the musician declared not to care about it:
https://twitter.com/ElvisCostello/status/1409567943520931847 EMBED
“That’s ok with me. It’s how rock and roll works. You take broken pieces of another emotion and make a new toy. That’s what I did [usando ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, de Bob Dylan, e ‘Too Much Monkey Business’, de Chuck Berry].”
The fact is that the discussion about alleged copies of Olivia is far from over. With your next album, Guts, scheduled to be released on September 8th, the conversation should intensify. And it has already reached the point where Justin Hawkins, vocalist and guitarist of The Darkness and rising YouTuber, give some tips to the young artist.
Justin Hawkins advises Olivia Rodrigo
In a YouTube video (via Rock Celebrities), Justin stated that Olivia’s problem would be solved in a very simple way: listening to more music. This way, your range of references could expand.
“You have to educate yourself. You have to listen to music, listen to things. In fact, I did my daily exercise ritual today while listening to the music of Olivia Rodrigo, and I heard things there that reminded me ‘Pump It Up’ by Elvis Costello. There was another one that… it wasn’t the same chords, I’m not accusing anyone of stealing anything, but I think that other collaboration of hers has a lot of influence from a lot of things I listened to growing up.”
In the view of the frontman of The Darkness, the young pop artist is getting “too close” to her influences. This may occur, according to him, due to a lack of broader musical background.
“There are things that are just influences appearing. But the thing is, if you get really close to something, you can’t deny that you’ve heard some of that music, because the things it’s influenced by are very, very popular music.”
No problem
Despite that, Justin Hawkins pointed out that, in his opinion, there is no problem in what is done by Olivia Rodrigo. It is a natural path in music.
“There is nothing wrong with that. Her dissonant material is cool, it gives a vibe Pixies. That solo at the end of the song ‘Bad Idea Right?‘ really sounds like ‘Icky Thump’ of The White Stripes. They’re her influences anyway, she said that.”
One netizen commented that this was a great example of mixing rock elements with pop lyrics and beats. Such a stance would make the style reach new generations. Hawkins agreed and highlighted:
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I agree that this could be like a gateway song to a kind of alternative rock, even if it is superpop. I’m actually really curious about what my daughter thinks about this song, I’m going to show it to her and see what she thinks.”
Source: Rollingstone
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
