Peter Tägtgren of Pain Doesn’t Mind That Eurovision Song Entry Sounds Like His Song
If you’re one of our American readers, you’re probably not as familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest organized by the European Broadcasting Union every year. Basically, it’s a contest where each European country submits an original song and then other countries vote on the best one. Well, there was a little controversy this year as the Croatian entry—from a solo act that’s actually willing to be known by the name of Baby Lasagna for some reason—was a song called “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” which had a bit of an industrial vibe to it. So much so that a lot of people online started accusing Baby Lasagna of plagiarizing the song “Party In My Head” by Swedish industrial metal act Pain.
Pain seems to have taken the issue in stride, as they posted clips from the two songs back to back on their TikTok a few weeks ago and asked fans’ opinions on the matter, saying:
“For the past months, we received TONS of emails, messages and comments telling us Baby Lasagna’s song sounds like PAIN’s song ‘Party In My Head.’
“What do YOU think?”
And, to be fair, when you hear the two back to back, you can kind of go either way on the issue. Yes, the songs sound similar at their core, but “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” definitely adds some elements that “Party in My Head” doesn’t really have.
Well, Peter Tägtgren, who is essentially the sole member of Pain, doesn’t seem to give a shit about the whole thing. In an interview with Finnish metal magazine Tuonela, Tägtgren had this to say about the whole controversy (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“I didn’t even hear it in the beginning, and [comments about the supposed similarities between the two songs] started popping up everywhere,” Peter said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “People were, like, ‘Oh, I think Croatia stole your song,’ blah, blah, blah. And I was, like, ‘What? I don’t hear it.’ I just hear ‘woo hoo hoo’ [in the chorus], but you hear ‘woo hoo hoo ‘ in ‘I Love It Loud’ with KISS since ’81 or whatever. So, for me, I was fine with that. And then, actually, our bass player explained, ‘Well, he has the same kind of figure of singing.’ Whatever. I don’t care. I thought it was fun. And I think it’s good that they put in a little bit metal in this Eurovision thing, like they did with the LORDI 15 years ago. When you get it right, it gets popular. So people want more metal.”
The truth is that a lot of songs sound alike, and it’s certainly possible for two artists to create very similar pieces of music without intentionally ripping each other off. Besides, if the person who’s supposedly being copied is fine with it, what does anyone else have to complain about?
