Powerman 5000 vocalist accuses Final Fantasy XIV song of plagiarism

Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One (real name, Michael Cummings for those playing at home) has labelled an official track featured on Final Fantasy XIV as a "rip off" of one of the band's earlier singles.

Originally posting via the band's Facebook page, the musician noted the similarities between the video game track and the group's previous song 'When Worlds Collide', which featured on 1999's 'Tonight The Stars Revolt!'

The initial statement read:

"Really? Got to say that the level of unimaginative theft that was used in creating this music for ‪#‎finalfantasyXIV‬ is mind blowing! I mean, this is When Worlds Collide! Using something as inspiration is one thing but a straight up rip off is another! Did they really think no one would notice? ‪#‎FFXIV‬ ‪#‎ripoff‬

To clarify, this is music from the game. If it was a song made by a fan, we wouldn't care."

Subsequently, Final Fantasy Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida, replying via a forum, stated:

"I have read through your comments concerning the BGM for the 2nd phase of the Containment Bay S1T7 battle with Sephirot, and I would like to personally explain how the track was conceived.

As most FINAL FANTASY fans already know, Sephirot (the Fiend) is a legacy boss character who originally appeared in FINAL FANTASY VI. When considering how to portray Sephirot's return in FINAL FANTASY XIV, we decided to pay tribute to FFVI by working VI's "Battle to the Death" track into the Containment Bay S1T7's first phase, while opting to create an FFXIV original for the second.

Building upon the motif of Sephirot as a representation of the World Tree, to create this FINAL FANTASY XIV original track, we further incorporated story-driven themes of death and a warped obsession with life, all while utilizing a musical genre─industrial rock─which we believed would provide substantial emphasis to the message.

Industrial rock is a popular genre that can be further divided into numerous sub-genres. Countless songs from these genres have been released worldwide, and I have been made aware of an allegation regarding similarities between an existing track and the track created for the 2nd phase of Containment Bay S1T7. However, track composer Masayoshi Soken, has also stated to me that he was unaware of the track in question while working on this FINAL FANTASY track.

We hope that you continue to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XIV battle content."

Furthermore, the above response from Yoshida resulted in an additional comment from the Powerman 5000 frontman, who then wrote:

"Fascinated by the level of interest in this. Opinions range from total agreement to extreme hatred towards the subject (and me apparently)

So crazy.