Band faces plagiarism claim, but is it all smoke and no fire?
Spanish rock group says Arcade Fire single features ‘pretty similar’ melody
The melody to Arcade Fire’s hit single and title track of its justreleased fifth album, Everything Now, sounds a lot like an instrumental theme that pops up twothirds of the way through a song by a little-known Cantabrian-Spanish indie-rock band. The similarities are enough to make you wonder if this isn’t another “fake news”-style story to promote Arcade Fire’s new album.
The surprising thing is that, in this era of, well, everything now, it has taken two months for word to spread beyond the Madrid/ Torrelavega-based band’s Twitter feed and a few Spanish-language websites.
Templeton first tweeted to its nearly 2,000 followers about the resemblance the day after the single Everything Now was released, playfully urging fans to listen to the new Arcade Fire song, starting at 2:42 of a YouTube link to the video for Templeton’s own song, La Gran Ciudad, from its 2014 album Rosi, accompanied by a LOL and an upside-down smiley face.
The band then sent out another tweet, joking in Spanish that, “With this we can retire, one million each and it’s settled, with a link to the video for the Arcade Fire track.”
Conéctica, a Spanish cultural website, posted a short article on June 2 titled, “Did Arcade Fire plagiarize this Spanish band?” Another website, jenesaispop.com, did the same, followed by crazyminds. es. On June 3, Roberto Juanes, the editor for T Magazine Spain, a.k.a. The New York Times Style Magazine Spain, tweeted (in Spanish), “We’re singing Templeton while Arcade Fire plays the new version because you have to respect.”
So why did it take until Thursday for the story to break in the rest of the world? British website The Line of Best Fit posted the news at 2 p.m. Thursday. A few hours later, NME followed suit.
The Line of Best Fit tracked down Templeton member Santi Castillo, who said of Arcade Fire’s song, “The first time you hear it, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty similar, and they are one of the biggest bands on the planet.’ ”
Listing to the two side by side, it’s hard to disagree. The entire melodic progression of Everything Now — co-produced by Arcade Fire, Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk) and Steve Mackey (Pulp) — follows that of the end of the Templeton song. Of course, bands are inspired by other bands all the time. The Arcade Fire single has drawn numerous comparisons to Abba for its overall sound, and the album is rife with audible influences of other music acts from the ’70s and ’80s — and that’s part of the fun.
But as far as a lawsuit, Templeton isn’t going there for the moment. “We joked about it and that’s all,” Castillo told The Line of Best Fit.
Unless, of course, the joke is on us. In this era of fake news, it’s hard to tell.