Metallica and Smashing Pumpkins: is “Fuel” really plagiarized?
Kyiv • UNN
Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins has stated that Metallica's song “Fuel” is similar to his song “Tales of a Scorched Earth”. The musician emphasized that he does not consider this to be intentional plagiarism.
Billy Corgan shared his opinion about Metallica's song "Fuel" and said that it is "awfully close" to one of his songs with The Smashing Pumpkins. At the same time, the American musician added that the famous metal band from Los Angeles hardly stole the song.
Transmits to UNN with reference to NME.
Let me start by saying that I love James Hetfield as a person. I love Metallica. James is probably the greatest riff writer besides [Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi]. James wrote some of the most amazing riffs and he's still writing them. But if you listen to "Tales of a Scorched Earth" and compare it to "Fuel," "Give me fuel, give me fire, give me what I want," you're going to ask yourself: which came first?
"Tales of a Scorched Earth", one of the heaviest Smashing Pumpkins songs, was released two years before ‘Fuel’, on the 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. There are indeed similarities between the riffs of these two songs.
Debates about the similarities between songs are a frequent phenomenon in the musical universe, reflecting the limits of creativity within common sound patterns.
AddendumAddendum
The Smashing Pumpkins' latest album, Aghori Mhori Mei, is the band's 13th studio album, following Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, released in May 2023.
It is distributed in digital format and, starting from November 22, in physical form.
