Short Stack Rip Off Music Bloggers?
Bass player for Short Stack Andy Clemmensen has been accused of ripping off well-known music reviewers in his guest-review of Kanye West's new record
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for Channel V.
The post has mysteriously disappeared from the Channel V website - but here is the review in question and a screenshot from the website.
Andy recommends...
Kanye West has always been passionate. Some people only see him for his egotism, his angry outbursts, his need for the spotlight and the FACT that Beyonce had one of the greatest videos of all time. But Muhammad Ali once said, "It's not bragging if you can back it up." This is exactly what Kanye has done with his latest creation My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
With every album, Kanye West dips into another realm of music: College Dropout had sinful soul beats; Late Registration featured orchestral strings worthy of a philharmonic; Graduation boasted towering stadium style synths that tore down arenas; 808s & Heartbreak was stark, cold, and full of auto-tune. Musically, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a nice blend of Kanye's older and newer styles. 'Power' compares to 'Stronger' with a catchy hook and overblown production. 'All Of The Lights' and 'Lost In The World' lean on electronica, with enough auto-tune to make T-Pain jealous. You can hear some of the older Kanye through the sped-up vocal samples on 'Devil In A New Dress' and through the explosive, polyrhythmic beat on 'Monster'. But my personal favourite is 'Runaway', where he rousingly highlights himself as a douchebag, turning it into a rallying cry for all humanity. Like many of his greatest songs, it's funny, sad, and perversely relatable.
It's in Kanye's nature to be over the top. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a testament to this. Everything about this album is grander. It's eclectic but never off-hand. It's hip-hop where every deviation serves the song's texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal and every end leads to a beginning.
Possible my favourite Kanye album to date.
Andy Clemmensen
So who did he allegedly rip off? Craig Mathieson, music writer for Fairfax, posted his concerns over on Mess and Noise after he noticed some p-retty damning similarities between the review and his piece for the Sydney Morning Herald two weeks ago - namely the not too common sentences -
"eclectic but never offhand; it’s hip-hop where every deviation serves the song’s texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal.''
(From Mathieson's review)
versus
"It's eclectic but never off-hand. It's hip-hop where every deviation serves the song's texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal"
(From Short Stack Andy).
Yeaaaaaah. Look. I'm not going to say that they sentences are exactly the same, but....they're kind of exactly the same.
It's also been brought to the internet's attention that there are some similarities to the review on Pitchfork -
But my personal favourite is 'Runaway', where he rousingly highlights himself as a douchebag, turning it into a rallying cry for all humanity. Like many of his greatest songs, it's funny, sad, and perversely relatable.
(From Short Stack Andy).
versus -
With "Runaway", he rousingly highlights his own douchebaggery, turning it into a rallying cry for all humanity. Like many of his greatest songs, it's funny, sad, and perversely relatable.
(From Pitchfork).
But wait, there's more:
From music blog Brilliantly Blunt's review of the record -
With every album, Kanye West dips into another realm of music. College Dropout had sinful soul beats, yet it took you to church even on a Friday. Late Registration featured orchestral strings worthy of a philharmonic. Graduation boasted towering stadium-style synths that tore down arenas. 808s & Heartbreak was stark, cold, and most of all—auto-tuned.
(From Brilliantly Blunt).
versus
With every album, Kanye West dips into another realm of music: College Dropout had sinful soul beats; Late Registration featured orchestral strings worthy of a philharmonic; Graduation boasted towering stadium style synths that tore down arenas; 808s & Heartbreak was stark, cold, and full of auto-tune.
(From Short Stack Andy).
Justin from Brilliantly Blunt also just hit us up on the twitter to point out the similarities between
It's in Kanye's nature to be over the top. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a testament to this. Everything about this album is grander.
(From Short Stack Andy).
versus
It’s in Kanye’s nature to be resplendent and over-the-top—My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy exemplifies this. Everything about the album has a grandeur charm to it
(From Brilliantly Blunt).
It raises a few questions - did he even write it or is some intern at the label totally out on their arse now?
If you were going to rip off music reviewers, would you really start with Pitchfork - one of the most renowned music websites IN THE WORLD?
Is it a post modern prank of some kind to gauge cultural crossover between Short Stack fans and reader of the Sydney Morning Herald?
Was he framed?
I WANT ANSWERS!
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UPDATE:
LOL: just used an online Plagiarism checker for university lecturers and found a whole other review thats been violated from over at musicOMH:
Musically, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a nice blend of Kanye's older and newer styles. 'Power' compares to 'Stronger' with a catchy hook and overblown production. 'All Of The Lights' and 'Lost In The World' lean on electronica, with enough auto-tune to make T-Pain jealous. You can hear some of the older Kanye through the sped-up vocal samples on 'Devil In A New Dress' and through the explosive, polyrhythmic beat on 'Monster'.
(From Short Stack Andy).
Musically, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a nice blend of Kanye's older and newer styles. Power compares to Stronger with a catchy hook and overblown production. All Of The Lights and Lost In The World lean on electronica, with enough autotune to make T-Pain jealous. But you can hear some of the older 'Ye through the sped-up vocal samples on Devil In A New Dress and through the explosive, polyrhythmic beat on Monster.
(From Music OMH)
The author from musicOMH, Justin de la Cruz has since taken to his blog and posted
"
Does it really take less time and effort to rip people's words from different reviews? You (or, more likely, some intern somewhere) really can't slog together 277 words for your bullshit column? Give me a f*cking break, Short Stack."
His twitter is a bit hilarious:
Also Brilliantly Blunt have now
responded and author of the post Justin has taken to the twitter too -
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UPDATE
Andy Clemmensen has apologised to the world via his Facebook -
