If you’ve had internet access in the past month, you’ve probably heard about the release of Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. I gave it a listen and honestly, was underwhelmed. The highs are modest, and the lows sink to the depths of her discography. As someone who isn’t a Swift fan, this aligns with my general impression of her work. But what really caught me off guard was how…familiar many of the songs sounded.
I mean, seriously. “Wood” sounds nearly identical to the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” Her thinly-veiled Charli XCX diss, “Actually Romantic,” is a mix of “Teenage Dirtbag” and “Where Is My Mind?” by Wheetus and The Pixies, respectively. The titular track could be the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool” if you squint. “Opalite” is pretty darn similar to Luis Miguel’s 1982 song “1+1=2 Enamorados.”
Of the songs on the record, there’s only one credited interpolation—to George Michael for the track “Father Figure,” which Taylor interpolated from his 1987 track of the same name. Ironically, it’s the only credited interpolation, yet it probably sounds the least similar to the track it was inspired by. What gives?
I’m not the only person who’s noticed these clear similarities. Across social media, fans and critics alike have been unpacking the decades-long debate: what exactly is musical interpolation? When should artists be required, legally and ethically, to credit the artists who inspire them? And when does inspiration cross the line into plain borrowing?
There’s a lot to unpack there, but I’ll start with what musical interpolation is. Unlike sampling, where a section of another piece of music is placed directly into a new song, interpolation reworks a piece of the original song via rerecording. A famous example of a sampled song would be Madonna’s “Hung Up,” which directly uses the iconic bassline from ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme.” On the contrary, Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart” interpolates INXS’s “Need You Tonight.” The melody, though strikingly similar to INXS’s, was rerecorded rather than directly lifted.
For most of its history, the music industry has struggled to define the line between inspiration and appropriation. Take Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby.” Shortly after the song was released in 1990, Vanilla Ice was hit with a copyright lawsuit by David Bowie and Queen, who alleged that he lifted its bassline directly from their 1981 song “Under Pressure.” He admitted fault, and songwriting credits were promptly handed out, meaning Bowie and Queen’s members receive royalties from the song to this day. Nineties alternative fans may be familiar with The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” which was faced with a similar lawsuit from The Rolling Stones when their manager realized The Verve took far too much of one of their songs. Even classic rock isn’t immune: Led Zeppelin has been hit with countless lawsuits over alleged unapproved borrowing of blues hits.
These debates continue today in pop music. In 2023, the estate of Marvin Gaye took Ed Sheeran to court, claiming that his song, “Thinking Out Loud,” infringed on Gaye’s hit, “Let’s Get It On.” Ultimately, Sheeran won the case, with the judge deciding that the songs were not similar and that Sheeran’s was “independently created.” In 2018, Katy Perry was sued by Marcus Gray for allegedly ripping off Gray’s song “Joyful Noise” for her song “Dark Horse.” While the courts initially ruled in Gray’s favor, the suit was later overturned, with the judge deciding that the offending section was not particularly unique and too commonplace to be deemed copied.
The most notable example of the interpolation struggle occurred with Olivia Rodrigo and none other than Taylor Swift herself. Back in 2021, Rodrigo released her debut album, SOUR, to mass critical acclaim. Of the songs on the record, three are at play here: “good 4 u,” “deja vu,” and “brutal.” Shortly after the album’s release, fans drew comparisons between these three songs and other popular hits.
- “good 4 u” has a similar chorus to Paramore’s “Misery Business.”
- the bridge of “deja vu” reportedly echoes the bridge of Swift’s “Cruel Summer.”
- Elvis Costello fans recognized the chord progression in “brutal” as reminiscent of Costello’s “Pump It Up”
In the case of Paramore and Swift, Rodrigo dutifully doled out songwriting credits to all composers. But was this necessary? I don’t think so.
Look, there’s a drastic difference between the identical bass line in “Ice Ice Baby” and “Under Pressure” and the much harder-to-pin-down similarities between Rodrigo and Swift’s songs. If you’ve never heard the two tracks, give them a listen—they sound nothing alike. While there’s no confirmation of what prompted Rodrigo to hand out songwriting credits, it’s hard to imagine a brand-new artist voluntarily giving up 50 percent of her work unless a legal threat loomed. But given the precedent set by Perry v. Gray, Rodrigo likely would have won any potential suit because there’s nothing uniquely original about the supposed lifted piece of “Cruel Summer.”
Compare this with Costello’s much more measured response to the “brutal” riff: “It’s how rock & roll works,” he tweeted back in 2021. “You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.” It’s a far more elegant acknowledgment of influence, and one that doesn’t immediately demand credit—or royalties—for something that’s creatively distinct.
It’s this situation that frustrates me so much about the uncredited interpolations in The Life of a Showgirl. Swift was eager to take half the royalties for Rodrigo’s hit back in 2021, for similarities that are far, far less obvious than any of the ones in her recent record. I’m generally of the Costello doctrine that music is meant to be built off pieces from the past and turned into something new, but if you set a precedent, you should follow it. As an artist, you can’t have it both ways: wanting credits for songs that were vaguely inspired by your own, while being stingy with handing them out for blatant interpolations.
Adding fuel to the fire was producer/musician Charlie Puth, who took to TikTok to defend Swift and teach the masses what counts as an interpolation and, thus, requires credit given. It’s an in-depth explanation that, frankly, misses the point of the debate. While by definition, Swift may not have interpolated direct pieces from any of those songs, “deja vu” most certainly did not. Where was Puth defending Rodrigo when she was being dragged over the coals for “stealing” from Swift and Paramore?
Ultimately, the debate over interpolation versus appropriation comes down less to legality than ethics and consistency. Music fans celebrated Sheeran’s win over the Gaye estate because a loss would have set a dangerous precedent for the future of songwriting, where even the slightest similarity could spark a copyright dispute. The industry has long struggled to define the line between inspiration, homage, and outright copying, and The Life of a Showgirl sits squarely in that gray area. Some fans on social media argue that none of Swift’s new songs are similar enough to warrant credits, but I disagree. Yes, music is inherently collaborative, but that doesn’t mean originality shouldn’t matter. But if Swift expects acknowledgement—and compensation—when her work inspires others, she should be more than willing to extend the same courtesy to the artists she was inspired by. Otherwise, the rules of the game feel less like a shared creative dialogue and more like a one-sided scoreboard.