Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine is backing Olivia Rodrigo as she faces questions about the originality of her debut album Sour.
“There’s all this drama about Olivia Rodrigo,” Levine said in an Instagram Story. “Look, these are tricky things, and anyone who’s ever written a song knows that sometimes you rip something off inadvertently, and it makes it to tape, and then it gets released, and then there’s a lawsuit.
“It’s a natural thing for it to happen, and sometimes it gets ugly, and sometimes it’s warranted that people take legal action. Sometimes it’s not warranted that people take legal action, and ... the grey area has reared its ugly head these days.”
Rodrigo and her co-songwriter and producer Dan Nigro recently added Paramore’s Hayley Williams and former guitarist Joshua Farro to the credits of her hit “Good 4 U” in recognition of its interpolation of Paramore’s 2007 track “Misery Business.”
Last month, Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent were added as co-writers to Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” because of its interpolation of Swift’s 2019 song “Cruel Summer.” Swift and Antonoff were already credited on Rodrigo’s “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,” which interpolates Swift’s 2017 track “New Year’s Day.”
Courtney Love recently accused Rodrigo of copying the cover art of Hole’s 1994 album Live Through This in promotional content for her Sour Prom livestream and copying the overall aesthetic of indie band Pom Pom Squad for her single “Good 4 U.”
On Facebook, Love fumed: “My cover was my original idea. A thing you maybe have to actually live life to acquire? … Yes, it’s rude.” In response to a comment, she accused Rodrigo of “stealing an original idea and not asking permission.”
Rodrigo responded in the September issue of GQ. "To be honest, I'm just flattered that Courtney Love knows that I exist.”
Levine called for people to “meet this with a little more compassion and understanding” because “all this calling out and s**t, it’s like, music is a creative thing, and I just hate to see it crushed … I just hate to see it become this huge thing where people get really aggressive about it.”
Levine, 42, said Rodrigo, 18, is “doing things that emulate [artists] from generations removed” and he opined: “I don’t know how bad that is. It’s kind of a cool thing to introduce the whole generation of young people to different musical ideas.”
The singer said he is “almost flattered when people rip me off. But I’m sure I’ve ripped people off too.”
Culture Club singer-songwriter Boy George echoed Levine’s thoughts on Twitter. “When you make music you are always making a meal out of scraps,” he wrote. “Everything is already written. @taylorswift has most definitely been using the @jonimitchell spice rack of late. Why not. Joni is a genius.”
In June, Elvis Costello downplayed observations on social media that Rodrigo’s song “Brutal” seemed to borrow from the 1978 Elvis Costello & The Attractions track “Pump It Up.” Costello noted: “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.”
Rodrigo's Sour is currently the No. 1 album in the U.S. and No. 2 in Canada.