Zuzana Smatanová Takes Eastern Bloc Piracy To A Whole New Level

mariasci | February 16, 2009 11:00 am

The one-sentence summary of this story—”Slovak pop singer rips off Alanis Morissette“—doesn’t really capture the full picture here. Oh sure, it’s funny because hey, you can already buy ripoff versions of Western movies and CDs in Eastern European countries, so why not go all the way and actually make a wholesale copy of a singer? But if ripping off Alanis was a crime, we’d have to time-travel back to the ’90s with a hell of a big paddywagon. Rather, the point here is the extent of the ripoff. This isn’t so much Turkish Star Wars as it is Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. Let’s break it down.

First, there’s Smatanová’s Alanis-esque look. Now, this in and of itself doesn’t seem like such a crime. Alanis herself probably ripped off her own image by combining Patti Smith with Joan Baez back in the day. (Which handily describes her music, too, so good job there.) If we’re all going to get called on the originality of our looks, there won’t be anyone left to judge, and then where would the Internet be?

But then you start to get into the music. Zuzana has one song called “Entirely Good” that certainly seems to be a mild rewrite of “Hand in My Pocket,” though why anyone would want to rip that song off is certainly a mystery to me. Then, of course, there is “Half an Hour,” which certainly, ah, borrows some moves from “You Oughta Know”:

All of this we have seen before. But how about this: she has even gone so far as to copy Alanis’ Web site on her own official Web presence.

holy shit. is this 4 real? [ohnotheydidnt]