Adam Levine is coming to the aid of Olivia Rodrigo amid claims that she's ripped off other artists, including Paramore and Elvis Costello.
While on his Instagram Story, the former "The Voice" coach weighed in, "There's all this drama over Olivia Rodrigo and the Elvis Costello song, and Paramore chimed in about a song that sounds like theirs. Look, these are tricky things and anyone who's ever written a song knows that you rip something off inadvertently, and it makes it to tape, and then it's released and then there's a lawsuit."
"It's a natural thing for it to happen, and sometimes it gets ugly and sometimes it's warranted that people take legal action. Sometimes it's not warranted that people take legal action," continued. "I think there's definitely become more of a gray area that's reared its ugly head these days."
For her part, Olivia seemed to agree that her massive hit "Good 4 U" resembles Paramore's 2007 song "Misery Business." On Aug. 25, the 18-year-old gave Paramore members Hayley Williams and Josh Farro a writing credit on "Good 4 U."
While defending Olivia, Adam compared her situation to that of Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams' "Blurred Lines" lawsuit, in which Marvin Gaye's family sued the two men, claiming they blatantly ripped off the crooner's 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up." A jury ended up agreeing with Marvin's family and awarded them $5.3 million in damages.
"That 'Blurred Lines' case was a landmark case that kind of changed the game," Adam said. "Without giving an opinion on what I think as far as how that one turned out, I do think that we should probably meet this with a little more compassion and understanding and try to find a way…all this calling out, it's like, music is a creative thing and I just hate to see it crushed."
The "Moves Like Jagger" singer believes that Olivia should be given the right to explore her creative juices.
"When you take someone who's a newer artist and she's doing things that kind of emulate the ones from generations removed, I don't know how bad that is," he said. "I think it's kind of a cool thing to introduce a whole generation of young people to different musical ideas."