It’s brutal out here in music law. When Olivia Rodrigo shared her single “good 4 u” back in May, listeners were quick to point out the similarities between her crack at a pop-punk banger and another song that’s already made the rounds in your local Hot Topic, “Misery Business” by Paramore. Today, the “drivers license” phenom has officially added the writers of the 2007 track, Hayley Williams and her former bandmate Josh Farro, to the credits of the No. 1 hit “good 4 u.”
Although Rodrigo never explicitly cited Paramore as influences on “good 4 u” when it came out, the songs do share a similar chord progression in the choruses (and both feature killer belting). This led some production-savvy TikTokers to create some pretty seamless mashups of the two tracks. As Rolling Stone reports, both Rodrigo and Paramore’s teams were apparently in touch with each other prior to the release of “good 4 u.”
Warner Chappell Music posted the songwriting credits update in an Instagram story on Tuesday, which read: “Huge shoutout to our writers Hayley Williams and Joshua Farro.” Williams responded on her own story: “Our publisher is wildin’ rn.” While the credits have yet to appear on streaming services at the time of writing this article, they do appear on ASCAP. Revisit the music videos for both “good 4 u” and “Misery Business” below.
This isn’t the first time Rodrigo has retroactively added personnel to her debut album, SOUR. In July, Taylor Swift, Annie Clark, and Jack Antonoff were given songwriting credits for “deja vu,” which Rodrigo said was directly influenced by Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” Rodrigo also recently got some flack from Courtney Love, who alleged that the pop star’s Sour Prom promotional material ripped off the iconic cover art to Hole’s Live Through This.
