20-year-old award-winning pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo just released her sophomore album, “GUTS” but within days of its release fans criticized her for the apparent plagiarism. This has been occurring since her debut album, “SOUR” was released in 2021. The neverending backlash for ‘stealing’ other artists’ music doesn’t seem to go away despite Rodrigo receiving three Grammy awards and making history for having a debut album go four times platinum.

Taylor Swift is among the many artists Rodrigo has ‘stolen’ from but most of the similarities Swifties (Taylor Swift’s fans) have noticed are due to the similar chord progressions. Many fans fail to acknowledge the fact that Rodrigo gives Swift accreditation on her song, “1 step forward, 3 steps back”. Despite the similarities between Swift’s “New Year’s Day” and Rodrigo’s “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” Rodrigo was given permission by Swift to use her specific chord progressions to create her own song. So it can’t technically be considered stealing if permission was given. 

Following the release of “SOUR”, Rodrigo was sued by Paramore for the similarities between Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” and Paramore’s “Misery Business.” The lawsuit resulted in Rodrigo continuing to pay millions of dollars in royalties to Paramore’s Hayley Williams and having to give Williams accreditation on the song. It’s important to note Rodrigo took accountability for her actions in an interview with Teen Vogue. She was then accused of plagiarizing Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” in her song “brutal,” but Costello didn’t seem to mind. According to an interview with Paper, Costello sees it as that’s just “how rock and roll works.” 

So what’s with the plagiarism controversy surrounding “GUTS”? TikTok users are now accusing Rodrigo of copying Miley Cyrus’ song “Start All Over” because the same chord progression is used in “all-american bitch.” In reality, accusers are simply looking for something to be mad about because Rodrigo is a new female artist so they want to pick apart everything she does. When “SOUR” was released, they wanted to put her and Swift against each other simply because society loves to see two successful women one-up each other, just for the sake of drama. Swift never sued Rodrigo, something many TikTok users claim, the controversy online was due to a misconception that Rodrigo didn’t give accreditation. 

Fans need to understand that there can never be any more new chord progressions. Music has been around for centuries so there’s bound to be similarities in, or even the same, chord progressions used. There’s simply no way to be original on something that has been redone a million times so Rodrigo isn’t stealing from other artists’ personal creations. If people want to accuse her of having similar riffs or chords, they need to take a look at every other song because to some extent all of them sound the tiniest bit the same. It’s time to let new artists gain success from their achievements, and to let them have fun with it.