Did Daft Punk rip off a Korean YouTube star?

Did Daft Punk rip off a Korean YouTube star for their smash hit Get Lucky? That’s what a couple of thousand Reddit-ors are currently debating on the site’s ever-active r/music board. It all started overnight when one Reddit member submitted a YouTube clip of Korean guitarist Zack Kim performing his original song “Robot Dance.” The song in question – which was posted over two years ago, long before Random Access Memories arrived – sure sounds a lot like “Get Lucky.”

But does that mean Daft Punk and collaborator Nile Rodgers ripped off Zack Kim? Well, probably not. While Kim’s song definitely bears a strong resemblance to Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de-Homem Christo’s mega-hit, as Reddit’s already pointed out: There are only so many chord progressions out there and “Get Lucky” has a pretty simple one. We’ll let you judge for yourself below… though we’d wager Nile Rodgers and co. probably won’t be losing any sleep over the matter.

So who is Zack Kim? According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, he’s a Korean guitarist who’s made his name as a master of the unusual guitar technique “free hands”. After appearing on South Korean talent show Star King, he’s covered the likes of Beethoven, Bob Marley and Bach and, funnily enough, has another original composition titled “Dear Tiesto.” Like Rodgers, the Robots and everyone in the Daft Punk camp, Kim has yet to comment on the comparisons between “Robot Dance” and “Get Lucky.”

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