There’s an old saying: “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” In this particular case, the practise of plagiarism has cut a little too close for comfort for Australian band Clubfeet, who have had their music video for “Everything You Wanted” ripped off for a second time by an international musician.
Following a similar scenario with Japanese indie rock quartet Champagne, the clever clip from Clubfeet has now been ripped off by Soner Sarıkabadayı, a Turkish R&B singer for his latest single ‘Kutsal Toprak’.
With the Australian quintet having released their music video on the 23rd January earlier this year, the comparisons between the Japanese and Turskish clips are hard to ignore.
Similarities between the videos include the overall visual style, particularly the camera focusing on the the slow delayed movements of the singer who walks into future versions of himself.
Soner Sarıkabadayı has also provided some quotes about the video, conveniently in Turkish but translated as best we could as the following. “Images can be replicated but emotions cannot.” So very true. Clubfeet haven’t said much about the clip, except to mention that they have a “recurring sense of deja vu”.
Having spawned the original concept for music video, Clubfeet did respond to the Japanese knock off earlier this year via their Facebook page sarcastically stating they were “flattered, but a little envious of their [Champagne’s] hairdos.”
Darcy Prendergast, an employee of Oh Yeah Wow, the production company who produced Clubfeet’s “Everything You Wanted“, wrote angrily on Champagne’s “Forever Young Youtube page:
Champagne have blatantly ripped it [the Clubfeet video] off. Kindly watch the original and kindly dislike this horrible pop song to stop uncreative vampires sucking at the necks of those who truly strive to create innovative work to wow the world.”
In the end though, the extra publicity the knock-offs have been generating has proven to be a win for Clubfeet, who fielded enormous interest from Japan following the controversy. After all, they do say that imitation is the ultimate form of flattery.
