It’s been reported that Universal Music has sent a letter to Doron Medalie and Stav Beger – the writers behind the winner of this year’s Eurovision song contest “Toy“, alleging they plagiarised The White Stripe’s hit “Seven Nation Army”.
The winning song was performed by Israel’s Netta at the competition earlier this year. As per usual the win was met with controversy, as many viewers called out the artist’s Japanese inspired performance as cultural appropriation.
Now it seems the team behind the Eurovision winning bop are in trouble too. A letter sent to the writing team alleges they copied the “harmonies and pace” of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.
Melodically and just in general the two songs are incredibly different – Netta’s is a pop song that samples an iPhone notification sound, and at points sounds like she’s mimicking a chicken. It’s also arguably terrible. If you don’t know what Seven Nation Army sounds like, you must be living under a rock.
Luckily to prove that the two songs are apparently the same, someone has made a mashup of the songs which you can watch/hear below. Put together, they do work. But it’s definitely questionable as to whether this was intentional.
In response to the letter, Medelie has flown to LA to meet with the label and discuss the allegations. A statement from the writer seems to show they’re not too worried; ““We were surprised to receive such a letter and we are handling it, and I believe that in the next two weeks the issue will be resolved to the best of the parties’ satisfaction.”
Hopefully they do, otherwise the writing duo might end up missing out on their royalties from the song. Considering how many times I have had to listen to it today alone, that’s probably a fair chunk of money.
Whilst we all wait with baited breath to see the outcome of these meetings, I recommend listening to the mashup as many times as you can without getting a headache.
Watch the mash-up of Netta and The White Stripes:
