Wednesday, August 21, 2013

'Blurred Lines' And Robin Thicke's Weird Lawsuit

"I've been following that Leprechaun for days and I still can't find him!"


"Blurred Lines", otherwise known as the song that disappoints me every time I hear it and realize it's not Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" is officially the "song of the summer." I don't know who decides these things but according to everyone in the world besides me that is an unassailable fact. Personally I don't think it's a very good song, but for the purposes of this article, that is beside the point. I won't go into the details of why I don't think it's a good song because I am operating at a level that is so far above the level most other people are operating on that it would be like Einstein trying to explain theoretical physics to a nose tackle*. Pharell is an undeniable force as a producer, Robin Thicke is a pretty good singer, and TI is a rapper. 




Robin Thicke's people have apparently filed a lawsuit to get Marvin Gaye's people to stop saying that "Blurred Lines" sounds like "Got To Give It Up". Here's what the Hollywood Reporter says about it:


The suit claims the Gaye family is alleging that "Blurred Lines" and Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" "feel" or "sound" the same, and that the "Gaye defendants are claiming ownership of an entire genre, as opposed to a specific work."

There is a good reason why the two songs "feel" and "sound" the same. It is because they are exactly the same. The exact chords and chord changes are a little different, but the way they are arranged is exactly the same with very little variation. The drum beat is very nearly the same, and it uses very similar percussive elements to accentuate the groove. The instrumentation is nearly identical.

I imagine the chronology of this whole thing has gone something like this: these guys got together and decided to blatantly rip off the groove from "Got To Give It Up", very carefully putting the song together to match the original as closely as possible; it came out pretty good, the song became a hit, and they are now trying to retroactively cover their asses because they don't want to give up any of that sweet sweet cash.

It is difficult to sue and win on the basis of a groove, because, as Thicke's lawsuit states, many of the elements used in pop songs are "commonplace" and therefore in the public domain. But there is a precedent: Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. because his people felt "Ghostbusters" was too similar to "I Want A New Drug". The two parties settled out of court, but there is a general assumption in the music business that Huey got the better end of the deal. Those two songs, relative to the two songs in the Thicke/Gaye debacle, sound about as similar as Beethoven's 5th Symphony and the Macarena.

I didn't even realize until all this came up that "Blurred Lines" didn't directly use a sample from "Got To Give It Up", a song that I've heard 700 times. 

So Robin Thicke loses, if you ask me. But he has won the game of life, because Alan Thicke is his dad. And for other reasons too I guess.

Listen to all four songs and the differences between them in this playlist right here:




--JAKE ZAVRACKY

* due to the backlash I have experienced from writing this sentence, I should state what I I thought would be obvious - it is satire, and I do not really believe that I am as smart as Einstein.


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