Lady Antebellum’s ‘Need You Now’–A Ripoff?

So what do you think? Did Lady Antellum rip off the Alan Parson’s Project? I think they are just in the same vein of style…Well, your opinion is?

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/ourcountry/75288/lady-antebellums-need-you-nowa-ripoff/

Lady Antebellum‘s “Need You Now” is one of country’s biggest success stories this year–it’s a certifiable crossover hit and has won several major awards, most recently Single of the Year at the 2010 Country Music Association awards last week.

Now, with all that said–here’s some food for thought. Is the trio’s smash single actually a ripoff of an early ’80s hit?

That may seem like a far stretch. However, some people are saying so–specifically, people related to the ’80s hitmaker in question, Alan Parsons of the Alan Parsons Project. Apparently, fans of the APP have been chattering about the similarities between “Need You Now” and the APP’s “Eye In The Sky,” a tune that approached the top of the charts back in 1982.

Alternative newsweekly Nashville Scene reported last week that a woman calling herself the “executive personal assistant” to Alan Parsons wrote in to their editor, claiming “Our fans are reaching out to us by the hundreds telling us how ‘Need You Now’ by Lady Antebellum is one of those ‘lazy rip offs’ of ‘Eye In The Sky’ by The Alan Parsons Project.”

If all this seems a bit out of left field, a fan of the APP took the liberty of creating the following mashup to drive the point home. The tempo and pitch of both songs have been altered a bit, but it is nevertheless rather an eerie match (at least in this example). Take a listen and see what you think: