Recently, BTS (방탄소년단)‘s chart-topping hit “Butter” became embroiled in a shocking controversy, when several netizens discovered that the melody sounds vastly similar to a song used for a Nintendo game from the early 90s.
For those curious, the song titled “Towering Catastrophe” was composed by Kozo Nakamura and Hiroshi Takeyashu, and is featured in Stage 04 of the video game “Monster In My Pocket” which was released way back in 1992.
In light of the recent allegation, one article from a Japanese media outlet reported that the composer of the aforesaid track addressed the similarities between the the two songs. In this case, he claimed that both the BTS hit and the song he composed “sound almost the same, it is beyond just sampling.”
After the article was published, however, the composer himself later took to his blog to clear the air on his recent statement. The composer wrote, “This is the first update in a long time but I was surprised today! A long time ago, I wrote music for a game called ‘Monster In My Pocket.’I knew of BTS but I didn’t know this song (Butter).”
“So when I compared the two, I did think they were certainly similar. However, I think that the similar melodies were just a coincidence,” he further added, prior to shutting down the claims that he had accused the K-pop boy group of copying his song.
“It was written (in the article) that I said it sounds nearly identical and ‘it is beyond sampling,’ but I never said such a thing. So I wonder who on earth said that, LOL,” the composer quipped. He further clarified that he doesn’t own the rights to the song “Towering Catastrophe” and it belongs to the video game developer Konami.
While you guys are here, take a listen to both “Butter” and “Towering Catastrophe” here and feel free to draw all the comparisons yourselves:
BTS’s agency Big Hit Music has since released the following statement:
“It has been confirmed that there are no copyright issues regarding ‘Butter’. It is a song that was finalized and released after undergoing a process of confirming with all songwriters that there are no issues with the song, and there are also no issues currently regarding the song’s rights.
However, we are aware of the claim that there is an issue regarding copyrights, but even if that is the case, the musical rights still belong to ‘Butter’.”
Source: AllKpop.
