Eurovision: Meet the new song. Same as the old song

Discord at the disco? Sweden’s Loreen (left) and German challenger Natalie Horler, lead singer of Cascada (Getty Images)

The Eurovision Song Contest is no stranger to controversy. Whether it’s claims that Franco rigged the 1968 show to boost Spain’s flagging tourism industry, or the Azerbaijani government being accused of forcibly evicting people from their homes to make way for beautifying its capital, Baku, ahead of 2012’s contest, barely a year goes by without at least a whiff of scandal.

Well, this year, the mud-slinging is already under way. Cascada, the electro act that instructed you to “Evacuate the Dancefloor” a few years back and this year’s entry for Germany, have been accused of ripping off last year’s winning song, “Euphoria”, by the Swedish singer Loreen.

After Cascada’s “Glorious” was selected over the weekend to represent Germany at the event in Malmo, Sweden, this May, the German broadcasting station NDR has commissioned a musical audit to investigate claims made in the country’s leading tabloid newspaper that the two songs are “absolutely identical”.

The lead singer of Cascada, Natalie Horler, has weighed in, telling local news agency DPA: “If you like, we can superimpose one song on the other. They are two different songs.”

However, Tina Johns, a music expert quoted in the newspaper Bild, said the two high-tempo tracks were incredibly similar. “The chorus uses the same accentuation, the ending peaks with the same combinations. The singers even use the same breathing methods,” she said.

Presumably not wanting to be seen as unpatriotic, NDR has tried to play down the accusations of plagiarism. “Every year, there are stories,” said Thomas Schreiber, the head of entertainment at NDR. “Last year, Loreen’s ‘Euphoria’ was accused of being filched from David Guetta and Rihanna, claims that went nowhere.”

A quick listen to both songs confirms that they are pretty similar: they’re both remarkably awful.