LONDON (AP) — Musician Nile Rodgers has said it is “shocking” that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke have been found guilty of plagiarism in the “Blurred Lines” court case, adding that he believed the song’s composition was not at all like Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.”
Rodgers, of the band Chic, has worked alongside Williams in Daft Punk’s smash hit “Get Lucky.” He said Gaye’s 1977 song and Thicke’s 2013 hit “didn’t really sound alike.”
“Compositionally, purely compositionally, I don’t think they should have lost that case,” he told The Associated Press Wednesday in an interview. “‘Got to Give it Up’ is clearly a blues structure, (‘Blurred Lines’) isn’t at all.”
Williams and Thicke have been ordered to pay $7.4 million to the Gaye family. But the dispute continues with Gaye’s children filing an injunction in court to prevent the copying, distributing and performing of the hit song.
Rodgers and Chic are releasing their first single in almost 25 years Friday with the album “It’s about time” following in the summer.
