Wednesday, May 25, 2011

BOOOOyonce

Beyonce performed at the Billboard awards and got pretty good reviews for her unique mix of digital art and choreography...except it wasn't unique. In fact it's pretty much stolen from an italian artist's performance from just a year ago. Both performances contain many of the same imagery and concepts throughout and at many times appear fairly identical. Much of it actually even happens in the same order with only slight details being changed. The developer of Beyonce's graphics said that the italian performace was "part of the influence" but says "there are a lot of different inspirations for where our piece came from."

I suppose it's true. They are not identical and do contain many different details, but the overall fact is that it largely copies the setup, concept, and specific aspects of Lorella (the italian performer) and then adds details that differentiate it. There's a strange line between copying and taking inspiration and I think this is a little to close to copying for my liking...it's like how Vanilla Ice said he didn't copy Queen's "Under Pressure" Guitar riff. It's "virtually" the same riff...but it is one or two notes different....

Anyways, I think she at least owed Lorella and the developers of the original show some credit or mention during her award speech...and maybe a knock for being unoriginal. I mean this is the girl who is telling women to stand up for themselves, be independent, powerful, strong and confident...basically redoing someone else's video while splashing some color in there does not say any of those to me.

Not identical but there are some times that are eerily similar in both concept and timing...check the comparison out below

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