Korean blogger claims 4MINUTE’s “Crazy” is completely plagiarized

[iigoru.livejournal.com]

Soon after the release of 4MINUTE‘s hip-hop and EDM comeback track “Crazy” was released, a Korean blogger has accused the girl group of plagiarism.


A small Korean blog categorized under the EDM section owned by one Lineage135 posted on February 10th about the alleged plagiarism, stating that the “progression of songs, melody, and even beats” from the song “Crazy” were stolen from artists Knife Party‘s “Boss Mode.” The poster claims that the songs are the same from start to finish, and has even e-mailed the plagiarism act to Knife Party’s management agency.

Knife Party is an Australian electronic dance music duo made of members Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen who debuted in 2011. “Boss Mode” can be found in their album Abandon Ship released in November 2014.

The full post written by Lineage135 can be found below:
“EDM is an abbreviated form of Electronic Dance Music. The genre is defined by sounds that were created by configuring electronic sounds to create music and not utilizing common instruments.
Many people who are not familiar with EDM may listen to songs and say, ‘Don’t club music all sound the same?’ But the truth is EDM artists spend anywhere from days to years to create their own original sounds to use in their songs.
All the world renowned artists have signature sounds that allow fans to identify them easily. On that note, when EDM fans state something is plagiarized, it means that the sound wasn’t created but stolen.
However, the song ‘Crazy’ by 4MINUTE didn’t simply steal sounds, but copied the progression of songs, melody and even beats.

The original song ‘Boss Mode’ by Knife Party is from their most recent album.

And this is 4MINUTE’s ‘Crazy’

It’s….exactly the same from start to finish…
Some may even say the song was sampled with 4MINUTE’s vocals on top.
I wonder what Seo Jae Woo, Big Sancho, and Son Young Jin were thinking.
Especially at 50 seconds of ‘Crazy’, the vocal builds the song up and than you can hear glass shattering than the bass dies and the beat drops. This is exactly the same progression as ‘Boss Mode’ at 1 minute 32 seconds.

Well I sent JHO Management this letter in hopes that Korean producers become more honest and hard working.
‘Hello Knife Party. I am a fan of your music from South Korea. It was so unfortunate to have you music performance cancelled on October, last year. But I still think your music is amazing and can’t wait for you to come and play in the near future. I am sending you this email to inform a suspected plagiarism of your music “Boss Mode” in the album “Abondon Ship” by a lousy Korean songwriter who made a new song for a famous girl group from your music. Here is the link to the song. I look forward to your awesome musical work, and hope you can come to Korea soon.
All the best.
Korean EDM Community ‘I Love House Music’ Website Operator.’

“Below is a comparison video of the two songs made by a Korean Facebook user. It says:
Track 1: 4MINUTE – Crazy
Track 2: Kinfe Party – Boss Mode
Track 3: Played together
Sorry for the bad quality ㅎㅎㅎㅎ

Publicação by 한백.

"

source: Koreaboo, Knife Party, MumbleBeatMusic 5G, the blogger's post

Comments

[forsureyoudo.livejournal.com]

I don't care I love it lol

[hagar-tammaa.livejournal.com]

oh korea...

[bunica1990.livejournal.com]

welp

[honeebs.livejournal.com]

that's not reaching
that's a hard hard sample

[miwa201.livejournal.com]

lol it sounds the same, smh

[adenar.livejournal.com]

i don't actually hear it haha, they mash together but they're not identical to me. maybe because i'm not too familiar with the other song. idk i'm probably in the wrong if everyone else hears it

[violentiak.livejournal.com]

Really, did you listen all of the the Knife Party's song? Or the comparison video that was posted? And I'm not asking this in a bitchy way, i'm just surprised, because there are parts that are pretty much the same, but it might sound confusing, because the song don't start the same way, for example.

Edit. And now I read the thread forward and I'm even more confused how it can't be heard for other ears when the others say it's so clear, lol.

[tokyocinema.livejournal.com]

That's not reaching; that is a legit and blatant steal--especially going by what the person from facebook's example showed--if they didn't talk about it with Knife Party first.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

Wooow, they weren't even subtle about it.

[iigoru.livejournal.com]

apart from the generic edm beat, they sound nothing like each other ffs

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]

That's the issue tho. That beat is what I think the blogger is talking about. In most cases, even if the beat of a song is taken without permission, people can claim it as plagiarism. If they got the ok to use the beat, then it wouldn't be an issue.

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]

Nope, its pretty freaking identical. I just had them playing at the same freaking time. You it isn't that hard to ask for permission to use a song as a sample. I think the reason that this keeps happening is that some of these Korean producers probably think that the original artist isn't gonna find out since they being in a different part of the world. But that is a shit of an excuse because Korea is now in the spotlight, so they have people from other countries paying attention and watching what they do, plus Koreans listen to more music outside their country they know about other artist now. They can't get away with what they use to do fifteen, twenty years ago.

[oniongulru.livejournal.com]

i keep reading knife party as katy perry

[chaneltini.livejournal.com]

you're not alone. >>

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Welp that's blatant...let's hope Cube already paid for that sample because I'm pretty sure homage won't work in this situation

[pinklunacy.livejournal.com]

I was a little skeptical until that first beat drop at 1:15 and them daaaamn. Both songs have the exact same structure. It's so blatant it's ridiculous.

I sort of hope Cube's contacted Knife Party beforehand and will come clean about it but I won't be holding my breath. When will kpop ever learn :( ?

[leighbee333.livejournal.com]

I was a little skeptical until that first beat drop at 1:15 and them daaaamn

Me too

[kjc48.livejournal.com]

This comeback is filled with so many highs and lows :(
Being a 4minute fan has never been harder.

[wi-arae.livejournal.com]

While I was about to laugh because the beat/structure is suuuuper common in a lot of genres, the beat drop is pretty obviously a steal. The rest midly sure about it, but yeah the chorus :/

[jasmineakaiumi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I feel.

Like listen to any other trap song and it'll sound just like this one but those 3 notes in the chorus are uncannily similar..

[sheswatching.livejournal.com]

wow. So I haven't had a chance to listen to the 4minute song yet, and I listened to Knife Party first, then 4minute and it's really obvious that way. Yikes.

[chanxchan015.livejournal.com]

damn. I love knife party. that sucks for 4minute though.

[sjtaazrz.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of Knife Party before but the part of 4minute's song that I do like is basically KP, and "Boss Mode" hits harder.
So I'm probably better off downloading them instead of 4minute and waiting for it to grow on me more.

[nana-the-dwarf.livejournal.com]

Noooo! I still love Crazy but it's such a turn off when this happens, hard to enjoy a song when you're constantly thinking it was stolen. It's very obvious in this case. The worst part is that it's the girls in this case that get called out when it's not even their fault (unless they were part of the production).

Why do they do this? Just because an artist isn't that well known and from another side of the globe doesn't mean it's ok or that you won't get found out.

[onehe4rt.livejournal.com]

They sound similar, but not exactly the same.
That's my opinion, and I love 4minute's 'Crazy' either way.

[nekosogi.livejournal.com]

I knew I heard it somewhere before, but I thought it's just cause it sounded generic. Didn't realise it was a copy...

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Last time I happened to glance at the iChart they were at #2...but I'm sick so that could have be anywhere from yesterday to day the song came out tbh

*Just checked...still #2 on the combined chart*

[veryimportantu.livejournal.com]

I can see how it's similiar but this shit happens all the time... CLs MTBD sounds just like turn down for what and Taras sugar free sounds like tsunami

[chaneltini.livejournal.com]

oh for fuck's sake.

really? cube you better have paid for this shit because I want the biggest problem in this comeback to be the atrocious concept.

[fantaesticbaby.livejournal.com]

lol the songs don't even sound the same though? this reaching

[hugtimes.livejournal.com]

damn that's blatant as fuck, shame on cube.