'Glee' jacks JoCo's arrangement of "Baby Got Back"

[CaptHayfever]

http://laughingsquid.com/jonathan-coult ... -his-song/

Glee is gonna feature Sir Mixalot's signature opus in next week's episode, but it seems they've taken inspiration from Jonathan Coulton's cover for their execution...& you could remove the word "inspiration" from that sentence without making it any less true. The arrangements are identical: The backing vocals, adapted melody, instrumentation, & altered lyric "JOHNNY C.'s in trouble"*. Whichever lead singer Glee used even seems to be impersonating Coulton.

This wouldn't normally be an issue, except that Coulton had no clue it was happening, & he holds the copyright for his arrangement (since he composed the melody which Mixalot's version lacked) & the sync rights for his recording (which might have been used for the backtrack; there's a sharply-cutoff sound at 2:40 that might be a shoddily-removed duck call).

There are dozens of sources; the link is the one I saw first, & it embeds both tracks for quick comparison.

*emphasis mine

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

Wow, a fantastic new low. Everything about Glee makes me cringe, though.

[Bomby]

Why.

I'm not even a fan of "Baby Got Back" but seriously. Why.

As far as booty songs go, if they ever touch "Back That Azz Up" they're dead men.

[Tyler]

Eugh, Glee.

[Calamity Panfan]

Glee is the best. Ryan murphy is a class act who reminds everybody "if you dont like this show and let us use your music, youre a homophobe

[CaptHayfever]

The episode aired last night. Twitter arguing happened, specifically with Glee's music producer, Alex Anders.
Also, audio analysis happened; the volunteer audiophile determined that they most likely did take Coulton's recording without permission, which--if it can be officially confirmed--will screw Murphy & Anders big time, turning them from jerks ("we're gonna copy your arrangement without telling you lol") to actual criminals ("we synced without paying for sync rights lol").

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

UPDATE: I went ahead I checked out the TV performance. They "cleverly" left out the "Johnny C" verse in the episode (although it remains in the iTunes track), but the duck artifact is still there, now at 1:19.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Deepfake]

Glee would hurt my image as an artist. It's not an opportunity, it's theft and character assassination.

[CaptHayfever]

Trufax: Anders said Coulton should be "grateful for the exposure." Coulton pointed out that since he isn't credited or mentioned anywhere in the materials or episode, it's more like "secret exposure."

UPDATE: JoCo has rereleased his version, billing it now as "a cover of Glee’s cover of my cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s song, which is to say it’s EXACTLY THE SAME", & is sending all the proceeds (minus Mix's royalties, of course) to the Save The Music Foundation & the It Gets Better Project.

Also, this letter was sent by a current lawyer & now-former Glee fan to Fox. It was awesome enough to get propagated by Wil Wheaton into his circles. Also awesome is one particular comment beneath it calling out the inconsistency of Glee's usual cover-credit policy.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Bomby]

They haven't done an Usher episode, have they? Because I've recently realized how much I like his older 8701/Confessions era stuff and I'd hate to hear it get Gleeized.

Oh no they did "Confessions Part II" and "Yeah." If they do "Burn" we got like serious beef. That song is too good to be ruined by them. Only Tom from the Boondocks can ruin it because that episode was hilarious, and besides, who doesn't sing Usher songs to themselves when they're heartbroken? Idiots, that's who.

Hi, it's late and I'm sleep depraved.

[CaptHayfever]

More support:

John Cheese of Cracked weighs in, for what it's worth. Best slam: "But you can't expect us to hire talented people to write fresh, original arrangements to every song, every single week. It's not only unrealistic, it's impossible," while linking to Coulton's Thing-A-Week project.

More significantly, this got propagated from a TV interview with Sir Mix-A-Lot just a couple days ago: "Do not underestimate a cat like Jonathan with a million followers. He will wax that ass."
It. Is. On. :)

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Even more effective of a comparison is, instead of side-by-side, alternating beats.

The Economist, Wired, & CNN have all picked up the story since the episode aired as well. And here's a live audio interview with Coulton about the whole thing, too.

If any good comes of this, I'll pass it along.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"