The Brooklyn band Creaky Boards claims that Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” is a blatant rip-off of their song, ironically titled, “The Songs I Didn’t Write”. The band says that they were initially pumped when Chris Martin showed up at one of their CMJ performances… until they heard their song on an itunes commercial Martinized.
Coldplay reps denied the accusations and claimed Martin hadn’t even been stateside during CMJ. Martin did have this to say about his band in an interview predating the scandal, “we’re the world’s worst—but most enthusiastic—plagiarists. We’ll try and copy anyone.” A joke I’m sure he wish he hadn’t made.
Check out the video the Creaky Boards posted calling out Chris Martin. The text accompanying their cross-examination mash up of the two songs is pretty hilarious.
Ah! So that’s who it was! I was in the AT&T warranty repair center the other day and I heard a song playing over the intercom with a guitar doing Computer Love. I thought it was U2. :-/
June 18, 2008 at 10:21 amI blame Eno for making anything sound good.
June 18, 2008 at 10:51 amwhy wasn’t this called “coldplagiarists”?
June 18, 2008 at 11:09 amIt’s easy to get pissed when Mega Star cops the melody from Hipster Brooklyn Neighbors, but not-so-gentle plagiarism is all over the place in rock.
The Dismemberment Plan completely stole the vast majority “What Do You Want me to Say?” from a late-career Bush Tetras song. I still like the D-Plan version 100 times better.
I’m no Coldplay apologist, but it’s easy to write a song without realizing you are regurgitating something that has already created. Hell, I do it all the time, although I tweak my bedroom masterpieces to avoid witty video responses from my (long-dead) influences.
Is a cut of royalties a meaningful way to resolve this? Maybe Chris Martin could give Mustache Dude an opening slot at a few stadium shows. Either that or a sexy dinner with Gwyneth.
June 18, 2008 at 11:21 amWhat they say in rock is that good bands borrow, great rock bands steal.
June 18, 2008 at 12:22 pmif they go to court, Creaky Boards will have to prove for substantial similarity between the two songs to find copyright infringement
but Coldplay has the affirmative defense of independent creation, meaning if two people write Moby Dick word for word on other sides of the planet, never knowing about the other, it’s independent creation, not infringement/plagarism because the one creation didn’t rely on the other creation
much harder to prove
I believe Coldplay actually did get permission from Kraftwerk and paid them to use the “Computer Love” riff. That same song though (”Talk”) steals from Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.” Listen to the beginnings of both tracks. It’s kinda funny actually.
June 18, 2008 at 1:53 pmColdplay pwns Brooklyn bands so hard!!!
June 18, 2008 at 2:49 pmThe only good song Coldplay has ever done is Yellow.
June 18, 2008 at 3:56 pmFALSE!!!
June 18, 2008 at 4:47 pmaww, michael, yellow is my favorite coldplay song, tool; though i don’t think it’s their only good one.
i lose coldplay, and while ths songs do sound similar, there’s a very distinct difference.
June 18, 2008 at 6:01 pmThis is the best article that has ever appeared on this website.
June 18, 2008 at 7:26 pmfor the record I think they paid for or at least requested permission for the Kraftwerk Computer Love track and actively admitted using it well-before it was released
don’t know about this one though
June 18, 2008 at 10:52 pmChris Martin said he wrote his song first…end of story.
June 20, 2008 at 5:14 amhmm… coldplay… isn’t that a brand of refrigerators?
July 11, 2008 at 6:30 am
They ripped off Kraftwerk too! The nerve.
June 18, 2008 at 9:56 am