Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick has weighed in on the recent plagiarism accusations aimed at Taylor Swift, arguing that musical "borrowing" is not only common, but deeply ingrained in how artists across genres create.
Following the October 3 release of Swift's new album The Life of a Showgirl — which reportedly moved over four million copies in its first week and became the fastest-selling studio album in history — online accusations quickly surfaced. Some listeners claimed similarities between the title track and Jonas Brothers' "Cool," "Actually Romantic" and Pixies' "Where Is My Mind," and "Wood" and The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back."
While those claims haven't made much headway in terms of actual plagiarism consequences (mostly because they're not plagiarism), the discourse caught Skolnick's attention. He addressed it during a November 24 appearance on the Talk Louder podcast (via Ultimate Guitar), using the controversy as a springboard to discuss influence, inspiration, and honesty in songwriting.
"I can point to many examples of highly established musicians, even pop musicians [where] I can totally tell what the influence is. I'm not a Taylor Swift listener. I appreciate her as a person, but there's a huge controversy over her new record, where people are comparing songs… There's the Pixies, one by Weezer. And these aren't groups that I listen to a lot, but, putting them back to back, you can really change one drum here and melody [there]…"
Skolnick also pointed out that modern technology has made these comparisons far easier — and far more public — than ever before: "I think it's also gotten easier to figure it out, because you no longer need to take a record and put it on a turntable, and then take another record… You have so much access to music, whether through streaming or YouTube. You just put up these tracks back to back."
Addressing the long-standing idea — often attributed to Picasso — that "good artists borrow, great artists steal," Skolnick stressed that influence becomes an issue only when artists refuse to acknowledge it.
"I've always been very honest about being inspired by other music. A Testament song, 'Electric Crown' — I've talked about how I was just riffing on 'You've Got Another Thing Comin' by Judas Priest… just playing around with the chords. Add a couple of chords in, and now it's a different riff. There's so many examples like that. Many of us do it. Many of us are not as honest about it. It's so common that sometimes it happens in surprising ways."
He then cited one of metal's most frequently discussed examples of shared DNA: "There's probably, like, three huge Metallica hits that are based off one riff that they did in 'Goodbye Blue Sky,' but everybody knows that. Pink Floyd, you don't think of them as borrowing, but there's a line in The Wall where Roger Waters is singing so close to Leonard Cohen…"
Skolnick wrapped up by pointing to a particularly unexpected crossover between progressive rock and grunge.
"There's a Yes tune, 'Starship Trooper,' right from their 1971 debut album. Now, the last band you would ever expect to be inspired or to borrow from Yes would be Nirvana, right? Because they were just against anything prog… But if you listen to the song 'In Bloom,' there's a part of 'Starship Trooper' that has exact same tempo, groove, same chords, same melodic scheme."
