Inspiration or Plagiarism

We are all familiar with cover bands, and songs that sound a bit too similar, but there is one young artist who has been taking the heat for “copying” styles, lyricism, or the beat of popular songs by other artists. While there are only so many chords and chord progressions to form songs, and that sound good together Olivia Rodrigo’s music shares quite a few similarities with some other big artist’s songs. This article will explore this talented artist’s experiences with copyright, and claims by people all throughout the industry.

Olivia Rodrigo is known for her fast rise of fame from her hit single Driver’s licence about her costar Joshua Basset who broke her heart, and received copious amounts of hate from pre-teens to grown adults. Rodrigo has had multiple claims against her with claims of similarities in album concepts, lyrics, and how songs sound. The most notable one off of her first album was her song “Good 4 U”, was noticed by fans first that the idea and sound of the song was similar to the Misery Business that was written by a teenage Haley Williams of Paramore. There was a lawsuit following the release of this album and now both Williams and former band mate Josh Farro are listed as co-writer who are given credit for the song and receive millions in royalties every year. While the concept of intellectual property in music has been around for decades, this is not the lawsuit Rodrigo has faced in her debut album.
Before Rodrigo faced Paramore’s lawsuit she faced reality with one of the biggest lyricists in the music industry, taking credit and royalties for two of her songs. Olivia Rodrigo’s team following the success of her album announced they were giving credit to Taylor Swift for the similarity in the song “1 step forward, 3 steps back” by Rodrigo, which Rodrigo stated was based off of the chord progression from “New Years Day” by Swift. This writing credit came out before the album release, but it was overlooked because of how prevalent inspiration across music in general. This song came across more as a homage, but the more shocking one was after the album was released fans begin to notice that the song “Deja Vu” by Rodrigo now had writing credits to Taylor Swift after Swift’s team sought after credit because of alleged similarity in the bridge of Swift’s “Cruel Summer”. This additional writing credit is seemingly harmless, and may just be ultimately positive in terms of attention and promotion of the album, but the real blame should not be on the 18 year old who wrote the kind of music she likes, and the music she uses to express herself. In this case her management might need to work on paying proper homage to similar ideas.

The music was not the only thing that Rodrigo got flak for, the artist got criticism from the singer Courtney Love, who claimed that Rodrigo’s promotional photo shoot of her crying in a prom dress holding dying flowers was a rip off of her1994 album cover “Hole” that featured all of those items. While there was no legal action the artist tweet a sarcastic jab saying “spot the difference”. Olivia responded with “love you and live through this so much”, when it is hard to tell if there is any real unoriginality, or if crying in a prom dress is in fact a common thing. Lastly, on her album fans have noticed that the sequence of “Pump it Up” by singer Elvis Costello is featured in the song Brutal by Rodrigo. While he has public stated he does not mind at all, it is debatable what these “homages”, “coincidences”, or “plagiarisms” truly are there is no doubt that all of these claims came out because of her fast and continually rise to fame and her talent that come with it.

All of these instances from her first album SOUR were not escaped when the release of her second album GUTS, which again was a smash hit album with multiple songs hitting the charts. Many fans accuse Rodrigo of copying other big female artists who also grew in fame in their late teenage years, with teenage pop hits that were well liked. The main song that people saw a lot similarities with was Rodrigo’s “All American B***h”, and Miley Cyrus’s 2008 “Start All Over”. While there was no lawsuit the artist again received criticism. That criticism did not end when the artist later appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed that song, enacting the angst song, while at a tea party and then turning to smash the table wear and cake while singing about societal expectation for her as a woman and as a female artist in the music industry. There were claims that her Creative Director Tarik Mikou, ripped off this idea from other artists on TikTok, whose videos they had liked. Whether or not there is truth to these accusations, Rodrigo has faced far too much criticism, and should not be the one put on the spot for this. As a popular, growing artist there are so many people in charge of this business and managerial side that should have caught this. There is a need to look into the “coincidences”, and examine if this is really a lack of originality or if everything has already been done. With that being said there are many people claiming their originality is being ripped off by Rodrigo.