Is there a case of plagiarism at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016?
Plagiarism or accidental resemblance?
Kristian and Niek, the presenter and producer of the morning radio show at Omroep Brabant pointed me to the Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 yesterday. That song If I were sorry by Frans does seem to have a lot in common with the single catch and release by Matt Simons. On Youtube one could find a bit creative cut & paste comparisons, but those did not made it clear in just a few seconds. So they asked me if I was able to create a simple mix to stress the similarities in both records.
Tempo and key
Eurovision Song Contest
Because both records have that much in common, creating the mix wasn’t that complicated. The tempo is virtually identical. The musical key of the two songs only differs a semitone: one is in E, the other is in written in F. I adjusted the key of Frans to match the key of Matt Simons, and mixed the two records on top of each other. Using this little mix, Kristian showed his audience the possible plagiarism.
A Swedish hit
Moreover, the single catch & release by Matt Simons is also in Sweden not unknown. It reached number 47 in the Swedish hitparade in 2015. That is much less than the fifth place which it did reached in the Netherlands, but still proves that catch & release is also known in Sweden.
Videomix
To please the eye , I combined the two music videos after I made the audiomix, by synchronizing them. I present you the result below. Make your own judgement. Is hit possible for the similarity to be a coincidence? I am curios about your opinion. Please leave it below in te comments. Thank you!