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'Heart Burn': Did Sunmi plagiarize Avril Lavigne? Fans point out original 1988 song

K-pop idol Sunmi's 'Heart Burn' makes use of the same sample that was used in Avril Lavigne's 2003 song 'I Don't Give'

Following her recent hit singles like ‘Tail’ and ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’, Sunmi made her first comeback of 2022 with the summer track ‘Heart Burn’. Complete with orange hair and floral dresses, the K-pop idol looked like a fairy for her mythical summer concept. And following the dark and moody discography of last year, ‘Heart Burn’ is a refreshing single full of light synths and an upbeat tempo. Unfortunately, on July 21, a clip blew up that claimed that Sunmi’s latest single was plagiarized from a past Avril Lavigne song.

A lot of netizens noticed that part of ‘Heart Burn’s melody was similar to Avril Lavigne’s 2003 song ‘I Don’t Give’. While Avril’s instrumentals made use of drums and electric guitar, Sunmi created the same tune with a synth, folk guitar and echoes. However, the melody sounded the same. The news reached Avril’s fans who protested on YouTube and TikTok with comparison videos of the two songs and the matching melody. Following the uproar, it was reported that Sunmi’s label ABYSS would be looking into the matter.

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Did Sunmi plagiarize Avril Lavigne?

However, Sunmi fans and producers are pointing out the difference between plagiarizing and sampling a melody with the latter being the case for ‘Heart Burn’. K-pop fans also explained how producers use splices and sample short melodies which just happens to be one layer of the whole song’s arrangement. KSHMR is a favorite among K-pop producers who have used their samples for tracks like NCT 127’s ‘Favorite’ and Blackpink’s ‘How You Like That’.

A similar confusion had been created between Hwasa’s ‘Maria’ and ‘Ram Pam Pam’ by Natti Natasha and Becky G only for fans to realise that the original melody was an old Bollywood track sampled by KSHMR and later by the three female singers. Fans are defending Sunmi by sharing that instead of claiming plagiarism, a better explanation would be that the idol used the same sample by Avril Lavigne. Many also think that the original melody was from the 1991 song ‘Losing My Religion’ by R.E.M.

Detective fans further dug into the matter and realized that five other songs had made use of the same melody including One Direction’s ‘They Don’t Know About Us’, Passenger’s ‘Let Her Go’ and Lady Gaga’s ‘Always Remember Us This Way’. One fan went as far as to find a 1988 track using the same melody – Taylor Dayne’s ‘Tell It To My Heart’. And so they reasoned that as long as Sunmi’s ‘Heart Burn’ did not copy the rest of Avril’s track but just made use of the same sample the Canadian singer had, it could not be considered plagiarism.

‘Samples are pretty common’

One fan tweeted, “Annoying people attacking sunmi for apparently stealing avrils song or something Avril does not care she probably would love it and love sunmi LEAVE HER ALONE.” Another fan posted, “Before these Avril stans comes to Sunmi, maybe they should start with Lady Gaga and these other artists. And tell them they plagiarized a 5 note sound.” One user shared, “Samples are pretty common in kpop.” Another Sunmi fan pointed out, “She even posted a playlist with this song a while ago about songs she recommends.”

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