So did Coldplay rip-off the former Michigan/now Brooklyn-based band Creaky Boards for their new "Viva La Vida" song? Idolator is reporting that Coldplay leader Chris Martin actually caught a performance by Creaky Boards at the CMJ music fest last October. The guys in the band were thrilled, of course...until they heard the new track, which they think sounds remarkably like their own "The Songs I Didn't Write" (a title which adds a little irony to the whole thing). The band, btw, is led by occasional Saturday Looks Good To Me bassist Andrew Hoepfner.
Chris Martin denies the theft, however. He told the U.K.'s Guardian paper that the Coldplay track was written and demoed in March 2007, a full six months before Creaky Boards claim Martin saw them play. In fact, according to the paper, Martin may not have been at the gig at all.
A Coldplay spokesperson claims that Martin was recording at London's Air Studios during 2007's CMJ, and so couldn't possibly have been in the crowd.
This, of course, is hardly the first time this kinda thing has happened and an accusation of plagiarism has been thrown out in the music world. According to our pal Doug Coombe, though, the new Viva La Vida album features nods to the Cocteau Twins ("Cemeteries of London"), Sonic Youth (the guitar break in "42" lifts the guitar tuning from "Schizophrenia") and in the album's finest moment, the second half of "Yes" (starting at 4:05 in the song), which Doug says is "the best updating of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless" he's heard in a long time...Oh, well, a little controversy is always fun. Watch the youtube video below and judge for yourself:
