Everyone and their mum has heard Mr. Oizo’s electro banger ‘Flat Beat’.
When it came out in 1999 it became one of those rare dance crossover hits that zipped to number one on the charts around Europe (helped by a memorable yellow puppet and a Levi’s ad, of course). So if you find yourself scrabbling for ideas in the studio and resort to cribbing ideas from existing songs, it’s best not to choose something quite so ubiquitous.
As InTheMix reports, Sander van Doorn’s label DOORN Records is about to release a track by Italian duo Nari and Milani called ‘Triangle’. The track isn’t available to hear in full just yet, but when the label uploaded a two-minute teaser last week, listeners picked up on the similarity to ‘Flat Beat’ immediately.
DJ Gary Flux flagged up the “rip off” to Oizo, who replied that he was “not ok” with it.
“@Gary_Flux: @oizo3000 have you heard this rip off? or are you okay with it. https://t.co/TItfBN60fQ” not ok
— mr oizo / q. dupieux (@oizo3000) January 7, 2015
Intriguingly, the video is no longer available on YouTube “due to a copyright claim by Spinnin Records”, the parent label of DOORN, but you can still hear it on Daily Motion.
Update, Jan 9: Nari and Milani have defended themselves on Facebook, writing the following statement and pointing to another track that uses a similar sound (as spotted by Mixmag):
Hello everyone in the EDMusic production world.
Please check this file in your audio library :
“VEC3 Special Sounds 94 Root D 130 BPM”.
It’s outhere, available to everyone… it’s on sale… everybody can go and use it legally, as we did.
We assume that several producers, more or less famous, uses music elements from #venegeance. Just simple as that.
Perhaps being upset with us was not the case, but to the ones that normally make money with those Library.
End of the day, music goes around and we can’t blame ourselves at all but choosing a certain sound that we liked. Funny enough, we went for a sound that a nowadays boy could just feel different from whatever else… as he is not aware about a 15+ years old tune. So, we are sorry about all the words out on “Triangle”, but we weren’t first to use that sound actually, as many others did > http://www.beatport.com/track/the-funk-original-mix/4031811and we are pretty sure will still do in the future. Long Life to Music !
N&M
This is Oizo’s response:
good promo plan for cheap: copy a classic tune and put it out like it's yours. also don't forget to look douchee. pic.twitter.com/gpT5RyUj8Z
— mr oizo / q. dupieux (@oizo3000) January 9, 2015
Compare the tracks below. Someone has also uploaded a mash-up of the two to Soundcloud to point out just how similar they are – thanks to Stix in the comment section for the tip.
