Breakout singer Stella Lefty has been dogged by criticism that her songs sound like existing hits. It’s a common situation in pop music, experts say — but rarely does it get this heated.
It started when fans saw that Noah Kahan had a songwriting credit on Lefty’s viral hit “Boston,” owing to its similarities to his own megahit “Stick Season.” The singer herself later confirmed that Kahan had been added to the credits after his team reached out to say they “think this sounds similar” to his song.
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Then, listeners noticed that “Summer You Were Mine,” another song on her debut album Long Way Home, sounded a lot like “There’s Your Trouble,” a Grammy-winning 1998 hit by The Chicks. Her label, Atlantic Records, later clarified that the original songwriters, Tia Sillers and Mark Selby, had always been credited on Lefty’s song, but said their names had been left off Spotify and Apple due to “a streaming platform error.”
Another Stella track, “Why Wouldn’t We,” has drawn comparisons to Blake Shelton’s country hit “I’ll Name The Dogs.” Yet another, “Misery,” has now been linked to the song “A Million Dreams” from the musical film The Greatest Showman. No credits have been added to either of those songs. Representatives for Lefty declined to comment for this story.
