Crystal Castles rips off chiptune artists

by Eric Caoili { May 12th 2008 at 11:00AM }

For those of you who don't follow indie music, no, we're not throwing plagiarism accusations at Atari's Crystal Castles arcade game, nor are we denouncing She-Ra's headquarters of the same name. Crystal Castles is a Toronto-based, two-man group generating a lot of buzz on the strength of its "new sound" and favorable reviews from tastemakers like Pitchfork.

Though the band claims to have no connection with chiptune artists, their songs don't venture far from the micromusic genre. As fans of the chiptune scene, we were irritated to see Crystal Castles snub the community in a recent Exclaim! interview: "It was only to create annoying sounds. That keyboard was made back in 2004 and then we learned about this whole 8-bit scene, which we don't really have anything to do with. It's a completely different world."

Attentive ears, however, have noticed that the group has a very direct connection with several chiptune artists, such as Lo-Bat and Covox, two artists whom Crystal Castles has sampled without credit or compensation, disregarding the Creative Common License the original songs were released under. Crystal Castles' response? They're denying it. Listening to the juxtaposed tracks in the video above, the similarities seem obvious ...

[Via Gameboy Genius, GameSetWatch]

Tags: chiptune, covox, creative-commons, insecticon, lo-bat, music, plagiarism, stealing

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Drago Dracini @ May 12th 2008 11:39AM

QUESTION! Why the hell is this on DS fanboy...?

Britton @ May 12th 2008 11:40AM

ANSWER: Well, Dwight, because it can be...

Drago Dracini @ May 12th 2008 11:45AM

@.@ but it doesn't fit, my dear cheesebiscuit... I see no reason it has anything to do with the DS. I'd understand if it were on Joystiq or Engadget... @.@

Britton @ May 12th 2008 11:39AM

Interesting find. I've liked these guys for a long time now and I've seen the blatant similarities but chose to like them for their relativity over most other chiptune artists. Unfortunately, after looking around at your proof of their "stolen songs" it's pretty damn obvious no matter how badly I want to deny it...

In their defense, though, I think their sudden popularity really got to their head, which some people might have never heard of them thus entirely disagree, but these are Pitchfork darlings and a good review from Pitchfork can mean sold out shows for years to come and really big openings. Really interesting to know that I once chatted with Ethan Kath about his programs and setup on MySpace and now they just shit out justifying templates to people about how they don't meddle in the affairs other lame artists.

Andrew @ May 12th 2008 11:53AM

Oh, ew, my hipster music world and my gaming world are colliding. Confusing.

That's a huge shame about the theft, but I don't think the selected quote is them snubbing, so much as it is noting that they're using 8-bit sounds for different reasons (i.e., to add annoying elements to the music) than the dedicated 8-bit scene itself. And it's hilarious they should find it weird when people love Xxzxcuzx Me, it's my favourite on the album. Oh, CC, I clearly don't ~get~ you as much as I like you.

Britton @ May 12th 2008 11:55AM

"Oh, ew, my hipster music world and my gaming world are colliding. Confusing."

That's what I felt like too...I couldn't really word it initially.

Pizza Pasta @ May 12th 2008 2:41PM

They even named their band after a video game! What a cuppla phonies. Nice plagiarism tag!

Bands like this are a good indication as to why indie rock hasn't been good since '99 but I'm an old timer so that's just my opinion and it probably doesn't count! ;)

Britton @ May 12th 2008 4:06PM

Phew! Good thing you said '99 and not '97! 'Cause then you'd be omitting a never-raved-about-enough album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea! But I do have a small quibble to pick because I'm sure you're aware these guys are not at all indie rock material. They're good SXSW showman (& woman) but far from actual rockers. 'Cause what about Destroyer/The New Pornographers, Sunset Rubdown, No Age, Deerhunter (even though their P-fork darlings too, I adore them), Black Lips (ATL!), Broken Social Scene, and a whole slew of fantastic effin' rockers! They're fantastic and beyond the '99 price tag!

Want me to upload you some stuff '99 and up? (:

Pizza Pasta @ May 12th 2008 4:54PM

Man, I love me some Neutral Milk Hotel especially that album.

I use "indie rock" as a very broad term usually when describing any band that's on an indie label. Also, even though most of those bands aren't really classified as rock, I think the term applies due to the "attitude" that they are trying to convey but I'm sure this logic is in heavy debate enough as it is so let's just agree to agree (intentional), no?

I know, it's a terribly out-dated term but old habits die hard.

There have been a few bands that have garnered my interest recently, the Black Lips are definitely one of them but my mind was firmly blown when I first saw Pavement back in '96 and even more so when I saw Modest Mouse in '97 at a squatter venue in Cleveland with about 40 other people. It's been very hard for any other bands to live up to those standards. ;)

By the way, I hate to get off topic from the post but have you heard Beaten Awake by any chance?

Britton @ May 20th 2008 3:47PM

I have not heard of Beaten Awake but I will be sure to check it out! Oh, and you mentioned that you saw, and loved, Pavement -- so are you into any of Stephen Malkmus's latest works? I adore Face the Truth...

christian birmo @ May 12th 2008 8:19PM

I hate all the electro crap the hipsters in Sydney are embracing and i'm sending this to everybody. Indie should be about bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Pixies not a bunched of E-addicted danced up wankers. This is a great weapon against that crap

rk @ May 12th 2008 10:59PM

This is hardly surprising of Crystal Castles. They stole the artwork of Trevor Brown for one of their early releases... never bothered to ask permission... never sent him a dime... to this day...

The whole sordid story on Trevor's (probably NSFW) blog: http://www.pileup.com/babyart/blog/?p=130

christian birmo @ May 13th 2008 1:02AM

the local indie station that's been supporting them just played a Crystal Castles tracked and mentioned the plagerism allegations... dunno if it was 'cause of my e-mail

JBGUY2K @ May 13th 2008 1:14AM

augh... how I hate crystal castle. My sister put that crap on the stereo and I told her to turn it off. That girl/guy's screaming is annoying as hell. I just wanna hear the chiptunes.

MIke @ May 14th 2008 3:04PM

messed up, first Trevor Brown and now this. hopefully it will help people realise what jerks they are

Brett @ May 15th 2008 8:59AM

So wait, gamers throw a fit when a band's "original" idea is in fact not, and yet are spoon fed the same marketing BS happily with the release of every barely different and "groundbreaking" shooter or platformer? How is this any different than the millions of blatant rip-offs that happen in the videogame world?

GenoBoost @ May 16th 2008 6:50PM

Really cool to see this on here. And that you took the proper viewpoint in the article after reading up on the facts. I write for a sepcifically vgm/chiptunes blog and did a ton of reading about CC (who i never really listened to beforehand so I had no prior prejudice). and the proof really piled up against them very quickly. Thanks for posting this blog post. It's a great service to the musicians who had their music stolen.

Also, check out
http://www.8bitpeoples.com/
for a response from one of the people from the label (and highly respected chiptune artist) where the music was stolen from.