Songs stay with a person: why the theme of plagiarism in music is eternal
How and why did the composers steal other people's music? And where is the line between stealing, quoting, and repeating platitudes? Almost every hit by a pop star causes a flurry of accusations of plagiarism. Recently it became known that Miley Cyrus will appear in court because of her acclaimed track Flowers, allegedly borrowed from Bruno Mars. Well, Lady Gaga's main March release Mayhem is being accused of plagiarism from all sides: Yana Poplavskaya drew attention to the similarity of the single Disease with the song of Little Red Riding Hood from the Soviet film, Turkish singer Atiye saw in Abracadabra material from her own track with the same name. While the artists are arguing online and in court, who first came up with catchy motives, Izvestia recalls the history of the issue.
Plagiarism without shame
Stealing other people's music, perhaps, always. But to people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the very question of plagiarism would seem absurd. There was no copyright, and most importantly, there was no desire for new things (new melodies, new rhythms, and so on). Suffice it to say that many Renaissance masses basically have the same motif: the medieval song L'homme armé ("The Armed Man"). And this was not hidden at all, on the contrary, it was often indicated in the title of the work.
There was another popular tune: Dies irae ("Day of Wrath" — meaning the Last Judgment), which became widely used in the Catholic requiem Mass. Moreover, if L'homme armé remained, first of all, a sign of its time, Dies irae stepped through the centuries. It can be found in the writings of all eras since the 15th century, and not only in spiritual ones. The menacing sound of the "Day of Wrath" has become a symbol, a universal sign, understandable to all educated people. Let's recall the very beginning of the film "The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick: a car with the main character, played by Jack Nicholson, is driving through the endless mountainous expanses, but the seemingly idyllic natural panoramas are accompanied by an infernal Dies irae — and we understand that something mystical and terrible awaits us.
The decision of Kubrick and film composer Wendy Carlos, of course, cannot be considered plagiarism, even if we knew the author of Dies irae. This is a typical quote from the postmodern era. But in the XV-XVI centuries, no one reasoned in such categories, and all melodies — more or less well—known - were considered publicly available material immediately after their appearance, sometimes without any connection with the original meaning and context.
Borrowing was considered absolutely normal even in the Baroque era. Music historians know of many examples of plagiarism (quite in the modern sense of the word) from Bach, Handel and other geniuses. There was even a genre of "pasticcio": if there was a shortage of time, the composer could compose an opera from fragments of earlier works — his own and others'. Well, in religious opuses, church chorales — melodies based on prayer texts - were fully used. In the Protestant tradition, to which Bach and Handel belonged, hymns were used, collected (and partially composed) Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation. Even if they sounded inside a piece performed by a musical instrument, without vocals, almost all listeners understood which line from the sacred books was meant.
The invasion of borrowings
In the 19th century, composers borrowed much less often. It's all about the desire for innovation typical of Romanticism, the invention of its own individual, unique musical language. There is simply no point in using someone else's, because it will not impress with originality. On the other hand, sometimes the authors deliberately play in the old days. Tchaikovsky, in The Queen of Spades, gives the Countess a song borrowed from the 18th—century opera Richard the Lionheart (authored by the little-known Frenchman Andre Gretry). Pyotr Ilyich's contemporaries could hardly identify the quote: Gretry's work had long since disappeared from the scene. But the Russian author probably wanted to create the very feeling of something hopelessly outdated, "museum-like". At the same time, it turned out to be quite accurate historically. Pushkin's heroine lived in pre-revolutionary France (where she learned the secret of the three cards) It was in those years when Gretri's opera was thundering on the Parisian stages, and half a century later she could well recall the hit of her youth.
But the real rampant borrowing begins already in the 20th century. Igor Stravinsky builds his ballet "Pulcinella" on the themes of Giovanni Pergolesi, and "The Kiss of the Fairy" on the motifs of Tchaikovsky. Both are more like homage, that is, a kind of curtsy to the predecessors. Alban Berg uses a Bach chorale at the climax of his Violin Concerto, which, in turn, is based on a Protestant melody. This is already a quote aimed at understanding listeners — those who know the original source. But the similarity of the invasion episode from Dmitry Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony to Ravel's Bolero is a completely different situation.
The main thing in this episode is the textured idea: the repeated, annoying repetition of the same simple motif, which gradually sounds more and more ambitious, menacing and aggressive. In the symphony dedicated to the siege of Leningrad, it depicts the advance of German troops. With a completely different content, but exactly the same technique was used 13 years earlier by Maurice Ravel in the famous Bolero, and Shostakovich knew him very well. And he understood that charges were quite possible. But in the context of the symphony, it was too important a decision for him to abandon it because of the secondary nature of the idea itself. "Idle critics will probably accuse me of imitating Ravel's Bolero. Let them reproach me, but that's how I hear the war," Dmitry Dmitrievich said.
In the second half of the 20th century, all kinds of citations and borrowings in academic music were, in fact, legitimized with the advent of postmodernism. Thus, the third movement of Luciano Berio's "Symphony" is a mosaic of various sound "fragments" (Debussy, Beethoven, Ravel, Stravinsky) superimposed on the Scherzo from Mahler's Second Symphony. It is clear that the innovation here was in the very principle of collage. Since then, hardly any composer could be blamed for the secondary nature of the source material - melodies, harmonic turns, and so on. The key was something else: the concept.
The Golden Sequence
Meanwhile, in popular music, the issue of using other people's motives has been and still is very acute. If, unlike a symphony, the main thing in a song is a memorable melody, then it becomes the value that must be protected. But here another question arises: the simplest thing is best remembered. Elementary melodies, elementary harmonies. And it's almost impossible to make them so that they don't repeat their predecessors (as well as hundreds of thousands of little—known musicians from other countries who are trying to make a hit).
Singer Alena Apina
For example, the so—called "golden sequence" is a sequence of several harmonies based on movement in a quarter-fifth circle, that is, a kind of natural framework of music. Let's take the Passacaglia from Handel's Suite No. 7. This is the XVIII century. At the same time, the famous "Winter" from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" appeared. And now listen to the chorus of "Yellow Tulips" by Natasha Koroleva, "Electric Train" by Alyona Apina, the screensaver of the program "In the world of animals" ... the list goes on. Yes, the melodies are different, but the harmonies are the same, and it is precisely because of their "naturalness" that the motifs are so memorable and pleasing to the ear.
And in this case, it is not even so important whether the authors of "Tulips" and "Electric Train" (Igor Nikolaev and Oleg Molchanov, respectively) knew Handel's Passacaglia and other examples of the golden sequence: this constructive element has become so popular that its use is not quoting or plagiarism, but simply a banality. However, it makes it all the more difficult to create a hit on this basis that would really be remembered.
Miley Cyrus did it in the song Flowers, although she used only part of the golden sequence in the chorus. But now the question arose: did she compose the melody herself or did she "overhear" it from Bruno Mars? The similarity of the main motif of Flowers with the verses of When I Was Your Man is immediately audible, despite the faster tempo and a different mood. But the situation is complicated precisely by the presence of the most common harmonic turn in the basis of both songs (and harmony largely dictates the melody).
Miley Cyrus
On the one hand, it could have been a pure coincidence — like Lady Gaga, who could not hear the song of Little Red Riding Hood (especially since the melody jump at the sound of "Aa" is the only thing that the two compositions have in common, so even if the artist lived in our country and knew the Soviet movie movie, neither no court would have found her guilty). On the other hand, Miley and Bruno have similarities not only in melody, but also in harmony. Yes, and the rhyme flowers / hours is exactly on the same lines. Therefore, it is possible that before us, if not conscious theft (why would Cyrus expose himself like that?), then a game of the subconscious.
Any modern person hears a huge amount of music, sometimes without even realizing it. In a shopping mall, cafe, on the radio in a taxi, in online advertising, and so on. Stars are no exception. Once a motif is heard, it can become firmly embedded in the recesses of memory and then surface in one's own work, just as common phrases and formulas sometimes flash through our speech. A good question is whether the author should be judged for this and whether he should share the profits from the super hit in the case when he really used someone else's work, albeit unintentionally.
It is extremely difficult (although theoretically possible) to prove that, say, Miley Cyrus heard a Bruno Mars song. It is even more difficult to argue why we are looking at borrowing, and not banality. And, by the way, this also applies to poetry: the rhyme flowers / hours is something like "roses / frosts" or "love / blood". But even if the singer's accusers succeed in all of the above, it is almost impossible to determine what exactly those elements that were taken from When I Was Your Man contributed to the success of a particular hit. After all, the question arises: why has Mars' composition not become as popular as Cyrus'? So it's not a melodic-harmonic turnover at all? But what is his contribution anyway?
From sample to cover
It is even more interesting when little-known performers claim that they sent their demo to a particular star (or producer, composer), but were refused or left unanswered altogether, and then heard their own developments based on the hit released by the addressee. This is exactly the accusation made against the sensational viral song Sigma Boy by DJ Vitaly Lazarev (Dj Lavitas), claiming that he sent his work to the animation film studio Melnitsa back in the mid-2010s, and there Sigma Boy creator Mikhail Chertischev, who constantly collaborated with Melnitsa, could hear it. And again, the similarity is obvious, but the motive is so primitive that it is difficult to talk about any authorship of the original element. And if it ever comes to court, Chertischev won't have much trouble finding dozens of even older songs with the same "foundation."
Madonna
However, we know many examples where the authors of pop and especially rap songs officially bought fragments (samples) from other people's songs and, making them part of their compositions, achieved great success, which would hardly have come without such borrowing. Madonna's Hung Up begins with a recognizable motif from Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) by ABBA. The American paid a large sum in advance for this and listed the Swedes as co-authors. But the expenses paid off with a vengeance: the single topped the charts everywhere and, in fact, restarted the singer's career, which in 2005 many had already stopped perceiving as a relevant artist.
But Kanye West failed to reach an agreement with the Backstreet Boys on the use of the Everybody fragment, as a result, the rapper's track of the same name was never released on streaming, although it was repeatedly shown to them at public auditions of the Vultures album.
Kanye West
Ultimately, the topic of plagiarism today usually boils down to two aspects. The first is property, legal: whether there was a loan in principle, and if so, how honestly it was carried out. The second one relates to the field of PR. A great way for a little—known performer or composer to attract widespread attention is to declare that the current hit was "stolen" from him. Even if it doesn't go beyond words, you will already be able to bask in the rays of someone else's glory. At the same time, it is naive to think that popular culture is based on original melodies and ideas. Its pillars are banality and secondhandness in all its forms (let's recall, by the way, cover versions, remixes, etc.). After all, the human consciousness hardly accepts the new. He is more comfortable with what fits well into the existing experience, including listening experience. This is the only thing that has a chance of mass success. Which, however, does not negate the main thing: without talent (not necessarily composing), there is nowhere here anyway.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
