Amanda Lear believes that ‘Redlights’, a track by the American star, contains elements sufficiently similar to her own song ‘The Sphinx’, released in 1978, for her not to believe it is a mere coincidence. The singer chose to make this known publicly by addressing Miley Cyrus directly on Instagram.
And behind Amanda Lear’s characteristic sense of humour, the matter is a serious one.
According to her, fans were the first to draw her attention to the similarities between the two songs. After listening to the track, Lear herself reportedly found the similarity troubling enough to discuss it with her professional circle.
The story has therefore moved beyond the simple ‘it sounds like…’ game that music fans have always played.
When does a similarity become plagiarism?
That is precisely the difficulty with this sort of case.
Popular music is full of songs that share comparable rhythms, chord progressions, sounds or structures. Disco, like contemporary pop, is in fact based on a whole shared musical vocabulary.
A feeling of ‘déjà-entendu’ is therefore not proof of infringement.
For a genuine case of plagiarism to be established, the key question would be whether elements of ‘The Sphinx’ that are sufficiently original and distinctive have in fact been copied.
And here, the public’s ear is no longer sufficient: it is generally musicological and legal analyses that enable the works to be compared precisely.
Amanda Lear does not seem willing to let the matter rest
In any case, the singer is suggesting that she now wants the situation to be clarified. Two typical scenarios could then unfold: reaching an agreement between the various parties or letting the courts decide.
A settlement would not necessarily mean that Miley Cyrus admits to having deliberately copied Amanda Lear. In the music industry, credits and rights can be renegotiated when similarities with an earlier work cause issues, sometimes simply to avoid lengthy legal proceedings.
Did Miley Cyrus already know about Amanda Lear?
This is perhaps the element that makes the story most intriguing.
Amanda Lear claims that Miley Cyrus is familiar with her musical world and has previously expressed an interest in her work. If this is confirmed, the hypothesis of an influence obviously becomes more interesting to examine, without, however, constituting proof of plagiarism.
Because knowing a song, drawing inspiration from it and copying it are three very different things in legal terms.
‘The Sphinx’, an unexpected second lease of life
The real provisional winner of this controversy could ultimately be a song that is nearly fifty years old.
Released in 1978, ‘The Sphinx’ belongs to Amanda Lear’s heyday of disco. A generation that wasn’t even born when it was released may now discover the track simply to compare the two songs.
This is also one of the delightful paradoxes of the contemporary music industry: whilst streaming platforms provide instant access to several decades of music, they also make similarities much easier to spot.
The key question now remains: is this merely a musical resemblance, an acknowledged influence, or an outright plagiarism?
For the time being, no court ruling allows us to speak of plagiarism as an established fact. This is an accusation levelled by Amanda Lear.
But 47 years on, ‘The Sphinx’ has just taken on a new relevance that probably no one saw coming.
