According to Metalinjection.net, Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick has discussed about the recent plagiarism accusations against Taylor Swift by arguing that musical “borrowing” is not only common but deeply ingrained in how artists across genres create. Following the October 3 release of Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl , Some listeners claimed that there are alleged similarities between the title track and Jonas Brothers’ “Cool,” “Actually Romantic” and Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind,” and “Wood” and The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”
While those claims have not made much headway in terms of actual plagiarism consequences, the discourse caught Skolnick‘s attention. He addressed it during November 24, appearance on the Talk Louder podcast by using the controversy as a springboard to discuss influence, inspiration and honesty in songwriting.
“I can point to many examples of highly established musicians, even pop musicians [where] I can totally tell what the influence is. I’m not a Taylor Swift listener. I appreciate her as a person, but there’s a huge controversy over her new record, where people are comparing songs… There’s the Pixies, one by Weezer. And these aren’t groups that I listen to a lot, but, putting them back to back, you can really change one drum here and melody [there],” said the guitarist.
Skolnick also pointed out that modern technology has made these comparisons far easier and far more public than ever before: “I think it’s also gotten easier to figure it out, because you no longer need to take a record and put it on a turntable, and then take another record… You have so much access to music, whether through streaming or YouTube. You just put up these tracks back to back.”
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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