An Unfortunate Sonic Coincidence Featuring Lana Del Rey. Now Shut Up.
Here we go. More hate for Lana Del Rey. Now some people are charging her with plagiarism when it comes to the melody of “Video Games.”
Before I even begin to analyze this, let’s be real: there are only so many ways to combine the notes of the western musical scale in a pleasing manner. It’s inevitable that certain patterns will be repeated by different artists–and not intentionally, either.
It’s perfectly possible (and, like I say, inevitable) that specific sequences of notes will be discovered independently, often across many years and many thousands of miles. Got that?
The charge from certain quarters of the Snarknet is that “Video Games” steals from the following Greek song. Please. You can hear certain similarities in the first line or two but nothing that constitutes artistic theft. Calling LDR a “thief” or “unoriginal” is just being thick.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen and judge for yourself.
Similarities but a stretch nonetheless. Everyone is looking for any opportunity to win the lottery.
Everything in music is part of a continuum or lineage of something. Listen some classic songs, Hey Jude, Stairway To Heaven, Champagne Supernova…they all sound like speeded up lullabies. Chances are mothers were humming those same exact notes to their babies in the 1500's.
I doubt Lana Del Ray had ever heard this song before, like most people hearing it now. And even if she had, the similarities are barely there at all. People just love to jump on the hate bandwagon. Coldplay's melody for Viva La Vida sounds almost identical to Joe Satriani's If I Could Fly, but barely anyone cared about that, because hey, it's Coldplay, and they can do no wrong. When it comes down to it, it seems to be all about perception of the parties involved, unfortunately.
Thanks for posting, its always nice to do a side by side compare when these allegations are made. My opinion: there may be songs that "Video Games" resembles, but this ain't one of them. #fail
Noticed that Blue Jeans plagarises Chris Isaaks Wicked Games though.