Miley Cyrus and the Plagiarism Question That Won't Go Away

The blues that built rock and roll was built on African musical traditions. Elvis borrowed from Black artists. Led Zeppelin borrowed extensively, and sometimes without credit from blues musicians like Willie Dixon and Robert Johnson. Vanilla Ice famously used the bass line from Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" and insisted for years that it was different because he added a single extra note.

The law has tried to draw the line and failed repeatedly. In 2015, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams were ordered to pay $7.4 million to Marvin Gaye's estate because "Blurred Lines" evoked the feel of "Got to Give It Up." Not the same notes. Not the same chords. The same vibe. The court ruled that a feeling could be owned.

That ruling terrified the music industry and for good reason. If you can copyright a mood, then nobody is safe.

The Miley pattern coincidence or habit?

Here's where I want to be fair, because fairness matters.

"Flowers" was deliberately written in conversation with "When I Was Your Man." Miley Cyrus was famously divorcing Liam Hemsworth at the time. The lyrical response "I can buy myself flowers" as an answer to "I should have bought you flowers" was clearly intentional. Whether that intentional emotional response crossed into unauthorized musical copying is a legal question, not a moral one.

The Amanda Lear situation is different. There's no obvious emotional connection between Miley Cyrus and "The Sphinx." If the melodic similarity is as close as Lear claims and she has 50 years of experience in the music industry, so she knows what she's hearing then the more likely explanation is that a songwriter working on "Redlights" heard "The Sphinx" at some point, consciously or not, and it worked its way into the new song without anyone noticing.

That's called cryptomnesia when you forget you've heard something and later believe you created it yourself. George Harrison was sued for it with "My Sweet Lord." He didn't mean to copy "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons. The court found he had done it unconsciously. He still had to pay.

Intent doesn't always matter. Impact does.

Amanda Lear's reaction tells you everything.

The most interesting thing about this whole story isn't the accusation. It's the tone.

Amanda Lear didn't call Miley Cyrus a thief. She said she was flattered. She talked about wanting to be credited, or perhaps pursuing legal options but the word she used first was "flattered."

That's the perspective of someone who understands how music actually works. Who knows that her 1979 disco track influencing a 2026 pop song is, in some ways, a tribute to the staying power of what she created. Who isn't interested in destroying a younger artist just in being acknowledged.

That's maturity. That's the way this conversation should be had more often.

The real question music needs to answer.

We talk about plagiarism in music as though there's a clean legal answer waiting somewhere. There isn't.

Every song exists in conversation with every song that came before it. The 12-bar blues has been used millions of times and nobody owns it. The four-chord progression that powers half of pop music has been played by everyone from The Beatles to Beyoncé. Trap beats, lo-fi, hyperpop every genre is built on shared vocabulary.

The difference between homage and theft is largely a question of degree, credit, and money. When you borrow consciously and acknowledge it, it's a tribute. When you borrow and profit without acknowledgment, it becomes something else.

Miley Cyrus has now faced this question twice in three years. Whether she answers it with a lawsuit, a credit, or silence will say something about her and about an industry that has always found it easier to monetize the past than to honor it.

Amanda Lear is 80 years old. She made music that clearly still matters enough for someone to echo it nearly half a century later.

That's not nothing. That deserves at least a mention.

Christ-Yvan 🛶