Saturday, May 9, 2009

Brit Music Scene

Brit Music Scene

New Coldplay Plagiarism Row | Cat Stevens Joins Joe Satriani In ‘Viva La Vida’ Claim

Posted: 08 May 2009 02:50 PM PDT

Coldplay are, for my money at least, one of the finest purveyors of guitar-based pop music around at the moment. And they’re British, which makes me particularly happy, especially as in other fields the UK sucks.

However, Coldplay seem to be getting accused of being nothing more than plagiarizing copycats at the moment, all of it directed at their song, Viva La Vida. With two artists claiming ownership of the original idea for the melody, I smell a rat.

Way back in December of last year, Joe Satriani went public with his claim that Viva La Vida directly plagiarized his 2004 single If I Could Fly. Satriani is suing the band for all profits made from the track claiming the band stole "substantial original portions" of his composition.

At the time, Coldplay singer Chris Martin completely rejected the claim, stating the similarity between the two songs was merely a coincidence. I have to agree, having heard both songs together I don’t think Coldplay has a case to answer.

Fast-forward five months and another recording artist comes forward and claims Viva La Vida is plagiarism. Cat Stevens told The Sun that, in his view, the song bears an uncanny resemblance to his Foreigner Suite.

Decide for yourself by hearing the two songs played back to back:-

Stevens isn’t suing or claiming anything as ridiculous as Satriani is, but the fact is there are now three songs which musicians are claiming all sound the same, or at least have similar sections to each other.

Again, maybe they do sound slightly similar but that is going to happen increasingly often as there are only so many ways of joining notes together. I just wish Stevens would sue Joe Satriani for plagiarism and see how he likes it.

[Photo Source: Newscom]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Post from: Brit Music Scene

Share This


at 5:34 AM