Above:  A handy video compares Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” with similar songs by Joe Satriani, Cat Stevens and Enanitos Verdes. Class action lawsuit, anyone?

Folk singer Cat Stevens (now calling himself Yusuf Islam, but everyone else still calls him Cat Stevens) is apparently considering jumping on the bandwagon and suing Coldplay over its song “Viva La Vida” and the supposed plagiarism of his 1973 song “Foreigner Suite.”

Now, we really don’t want to defend Coldplay’s blandly affable pop, but we don’t think Stevens has a case. And, if he does have a case, he should actually be suing guitarist Joe Satriani, since Satriani thinks Coldplay stole the song from his “If I Could Fly”—which means Satriani must’ve copied it from Stevens, right?

Frankly, we’re not sure why anyone would want to claim credit for this boring mess.
Oh wait, it involves a stack of cash as big as Gwyneth Paltrow’s ego, that’s why.

Maybe,  the song’s chord progression is just so common and natural (and kinda boring) that it has already been played a million times before, so nobody can really claim ownership of it anymore-like a blues riff.

Long before Satriani’s case made headlines, Brooklyn’s bouncy pop act Creaky Boards (AKA Andrew Hoepfner) claimed that Coldplay had stolen the “Viva la Vida” melody from its song (fittingly titled “The Songs I Didn’t Write”) after seeing the band perform at the CMJ music festival in 2007. Hoepfner hasn’t filed charges, and we’re not really sure if this is a joke or not, but it’s still more convincing than the Satriani case.

After the jump: See the actually pretty convincing Coldplay vs. Brooklyn’s Creaky Boards comparison video. Continue reading »