Lizzy McAlpine has just released Angel, and she is already talking about one of its songs sounding like somebody else's. The resemblance is to a Nick Drake track, and by her own account it was an accident rather than a decision.
What makes the admission notable is who made it. Stereogum, which carried the story, put it against the four separate ripoff allegations aimed at Stella Lefty, another young singer-songwriter, and against a general run of plagiarism arguments in indie and pop writing. McAlpine's case is a different shape: nobody accused her, nothing has been filed, and she named it herself. Stella Lefty's own debut album, Long Way Home, is out this month.
What is not on the record is almost everything else. Neither song has been named, no response from the Nick Drake estate has been reported, and no legal claim over it exists. That gap matters, because the cases that do reach a courtroom turn on specifics rather than resemblance, as the sampling suit Beyonce is facing over Alien Superstar shows.
The facts
- Lizzy McAlpine says a song on her album Angel accidentally copies a Nick Drake track.
- She raised the resemblance herself rather than answering an accusation.
- No legal claim over the song has been reported.
- Stereogum sets it against four ripoff allegations made against Stella Lefty.
- Neither the McAlpine song nor the Nick Drake song has been named.
How this checks out
Single source
Reported by a single outlet
Only one outlet has reported it so far, so it stays a single source.
Cited sources 1
Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.