Recommendations of the Editorial team
Taylor Swift released her twelfth album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” last week. Within the first 24 hours, listeners noticed similarities between their new songs and existing tracks from other artists. At first the comparisons seemed harmless. But this soon turned into accusations of musical plagiarism. The focus is, among other things, on the title song of the album, the snappy track “Actually Romantic” and the Travis Kelce-inspired piece “Wood”.
“The Internet loves to investigate, doesn’t it?” says forensic musicologist and Berklee College of Music professor Dr. Joe Bennett, speaking to Rolling Stone. “But similarity alone is not evidence of influence, let alone copyright infringement. Coincidental, partial similarities are much more common than many people think – actual copies, however, are much rarer.”
Bennett explains that popular music is a “limited art form” in which most songs have “a fixed tempo, a limited pitch range, a stable key, and recurring chord progressions.” Therefore, there are inevitably occasional overlaps.
After the wave of online comparisons between Swift’s new songs and older pieces, some users called for legal action to protect the supposedly affected artists. (A spokesperson for Swift declined to comment.) Dr. However, Bennett does not see any basis for lawsuits in any of the popular cases. Here he explains why.
“The Life of a Showgirl” vs. Jonas Brothers’ “Cool”
For Dr. For Bennett, this comparison is unfounded. If you listen closely, it becomes clear that “most of the notes are different and completely different chord progressions are used.” The audience probably just perceives similar keys and tempos.
“I would describe them as objectively dissimilar. It’s entirely possible that two songwriting teams came to these melodic decisions independently,” says Bennett. “Most of the notes are based on the first three degrees of the major scale – do-re-mi. Such melodic coincidences happen.”
“Actually Romantic” vs. Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind”
“In the case of Actually Romantic, the only similarity is the chord progression (EC#m G# A) and the key (E major),” explains Bennett. “There are no similarities in melody, lyrics or other compositional components. However, songs with identical chord progressions sound subjectively similar.”
The Berklee professor points out that this chord progression – I-vi-III-IV (1 major, 6 minor, 3 major, 4 major) – is not very common, but it is not unique either. “In addition to the Pixies, I found them in songs by Ellie Goulding, Arctic Monkeys, Demi Lovato and others. Taylor herself often uses common chord progressions, but always creates completely original songs from them.”
“Wood” vs. The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”
This accusation is held by Dr. Bennett for the most unfounded. “Every funk guitarist knows riffs like that,” he says. There are also numerous popular songs from the heyday of disco and funk that use the same production elements and musical motifs that Swift and her co-producers Max Martin and Shellback drew from – such as “September” or “Shining Star” by Earth, Wind & Fire, Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, “Jive Talkin'” by the Bee Gees or “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by Taste of Honey.
As with the other cases, Bennett sees no reason to add additional interpolation credits to Swift. “It just uses common musical elements and plays with production tropes,” he explains. “When Taylor chooses to interpolate other artists’ works, she does so consciously and with due credit – see ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and ‘Father Figure’.”