Plagiarism

I’m going to try and be as reasonable and inoffensive as possible here, but I know that I run a severe risk of not doing so. If you’re at all familiar with what goes on here on this mighty fine blog (artistic descriptive licence used here to bend the truth on the subject of the quality of the blog), you’ll probably know that often I use it as a simple way of venting my anger/frustration/hatred on a certain topic/theme and shoving right in your unwilling faces. I’m just that kind. With this heated writing then, comes some often over the top statements, or harsh words that I wouldn’t otherwise say. But today, I can at least say when I look back at this blog entry, that I tried to refrain from reaching the difficult depths of irrational behaviour. Bloody hell, let’s just say it’s lucky that I don’t have a character limit. I do however, have a readers’ attention span limit, and the upper bound duration of such an entity has most probably already been surpassed, even at such an early stage. You know it’s not going well when you’re nearly 200 words in, and you haven’t even mentioned what the blog post itself is going to be about, apart from in the title. Oh wait, let me change that. When you’re over 200 words in, and you haven’t even mentioned what the blog post itself is going to be about. Holy cack, I’m just prolonging it now. Let’s just get down to business, before we all die. Plagiarism is a very difficult issue. It has to be dealt with sensitively and diligently, because at times a lot can be riding on it. Half think of it like your mother. Though nobody ‘deals with her’ sensitively, she certainly has had a lot riding on her. To my misfortune, I recently stumbled upon ‘the incredible’ (according to her official Youtube channel) new single from that thing, Diana Vickers. Is she a squirrel, or a chipmunk, or a gopher? None, but she certainly resembles all three. Is she annoying? Yes, yes, and twenty thousand times yes. Is she talented? No, no, and twenty thousand times no. Do I give a shit about her and her career? Read the answer to the previous question. Bugger, that’s me being overly harsh already. But anyway, back to the story. I click on the link to her new single, and I listen. Now, you may be wondering to yourself ‘Ben, why the hell did you choose to listen to a Diana Vickers song?!’ and my answer to that query would be that after seeing her and laughing in response once (for many reasons), I’d very much have liked the chance to do it again. This video was that chance. So I listen away. The first thing that strikes me is just how ridiculous she looks, and also the fact that many themes from the music video have been lifted from other artists and musicians with little subtlety. Naughty. Take the shots in which she’s in a cage, as an example. I’ve certainly seen it done very similarly by Shakira before. It also begs the question, if they finally got Diana Vickers under control and in captivity, why did they not torture her to death, while maximising the amount of pain she experiences for entertainment reasons?! Hopefully this did still happen after the filming of this video. The next thing that strikes me is that for whatever reason, the song sounds a little bit familiar. The next thing that strikes me is that the song is complete and utter garbage, and is comparable in quality to listening to a brain-dead cat soil itself, while it attempts to screech out the national anthem from its nose. The final thing that strikes me is that I have most definitely wasted approximately 3 minutes of my life, that I’ll never be able to get back again. Once the song is over though, I can’t help but get pissed off by the familiarity of the song’s chorus. I proceed to scroll down and examine the comments, and to my glee I find that the video has received nearly as many dislikes as it has likes. Not quite there, but get in. Crucially though, I also find that a massive talking point is about how the chorus of the song has been nicked from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ classic Under The Bridge. Very naughty. I begrudgingly listen to the (pitiful) song again, and it hits me. They’re right. The basic melody of the chorus is dangerously similar to that of RHCP’s song. Now it’s not as though the whole song has been ‘lifted’, of course, but a substantially sizable portion of the song is very similar. It’s frankly disgusting to see such a talentless, mentally damaged shrew of a woman prance around to the stolen melody of some absolute legends of rock music history (or to be more specific, funk rock). It’s taboo; it’s common sense to know that it shouldn’t be done. I just don’t understand it. It’s frankly laughable that Mrs Vickers can find HEAVY inspiration from such a brilliant song, and yet turn it into the musical equivalent of rotten faecal matter. It’s beyond belief. Let’s look at it in a completely different way. A long time popular and successful chef bakes a scrumptious cake, with the finest ingredients and it’s a massive hit. He releases the recipe to the public domain. A wannabe chef sees this recipe, tries it, loves it, and decides to modify it and release it into the public domain. However, the wannabe chef is incompetent, and so takes out all of the nice ingredients from the cake and replaces them with such delights as camel pus, dirt, semen, and of course her nan’s pubic hair. Is that acceptable?! No, no it isn’t. So, because of this fiasco, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are indeed suing poor little Diana Vickers, the gimped up, mentally held back tart. Watch this space.

Disclaimer: I have nothing personally against Diana Vickers, and I’m sure that she’s actually a rather nice person. However, I find her intensely irritating, moronic, and incompetent, so I feel as though my over the top expression of feelings is partially justified.