Beach House vs Volkswagen

Row over car ad brewing...

Beach House have responded to Volkswagen’s new car advert – which seemingly features a copycat version of their song ‘Take Care’.

The landscape for musical copyright is a vast, complex realm. Bands who aim to keep their integrity, refusing licenses for ad use, are often victims of ‘soundalike’ recordings – essentially, rip offs which operate within the realms of the law.

Beach House are seemingly the latest victims. Volkswagen launched their latest British ad campaign recently, using a song which bore remarkable resemblance to the American dream pop pairing.

Listen to both tracks below.

Beach House – Take Care

VW Polo ad

Pitchfork first brought the similarities to public attention, and now point towards a message on the Beach House Facebook page.

“Hate to have to address this VW ad story during our release week, but an important part of information wasn’t included in the news story. The ad agency actively tried to license “take care” from us for weeks, to which we politely declined. People’s comments/ anger should not be directed towards VW or us. It was the ad agency that made these moves. I hope this also clarifies to fans and non- fans just how “take care” and the vw ad song are related. We will release a proper statement weeks from now when we don’t have more interesting things to do/ talk about.”

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