Maroon 5’s Adam Levine Defends Olivia Rodrigo Amidst Plagiarism Claims

After the release of her debut hit record, Sour, 18-year-old California-born songwriter, Olivia Rodrigo, has garnered significant attention and even some criticism, but not necessarily always for the quality of her songs themselves. Rather, Rodrigo has recently heard claims of plagiarism.

In songwriting, though, there is often a fine line between inspiration and plucking someone’s Intellectual Property. This is what veteran artist and Grammy-winning musician Adam Levine thinks, at least. The Maroon 5 frontman recently came to Rodrigo’s defense, saying writing music can be “tricky.”

“Look,” Levine said on his Instagram story to his 13.5 million followers, “these are tricky things, and anyone who’s ever written a song knows that sometimes you rip something off inadvertently, and it makes it to tape, and then it gets released, and then there’s a lawsuit.

“It’s a natural thing for it to happen, and sometimes it gets ugly, and sometimes it’s warranted that people take legal action. Sometimes it’s not warranted that people take legal action, and … the grey area has reared its ugly head these days.”

Levine cited the 2015 legal battle between Marvin Gaye’s estate and Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke for their song “Blurred Lines.”

“Without giving an opinion on … how that one turned out, I do think that we [could] probably meet this with a little more compassion and understanding,” Levine added.

Last week, Rodrigo added Hayley Williams and her former six-string player, Josh Farro, as cowriters on her track, “Good 4 U.” Several months ago, she added Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent as cowriters to her single “Deja Vu.” While others like Courtney Love and Elvis Costello have since chimed in about the claims.