Andy Clemmensen, the bassist of Central Coast pop rock outfit Short Stack, has been busted for heavily plagiarising a review he wrote for Channel V's website. Each member of the band was commissioned to write a review for the site, until it was discovered by Fairfax journalist Craig Mathieson that Clemmensen's write-up of Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" was almost intistinguishable from a review which had featured in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Mathieson proceeded to post the news on music industry forum Mess+Noise, where it became apparent that the entire review was merely a patchwork of other sources. One example of the plagiarism is as follows:
Clemmensen's article - "It's eclectic but never off-hand. It's hip-hop where every deviation serves the song's texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal."
Mathieson' s original article - "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is eclectic but never offhand; it's hip-hop where every deviation serves the song's texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal."
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Another source from which the article borrowed was from Justin De La Cruz's review for Music OMH. De La Cruz blogged in response to the incident, writing “Does it really take less time and effort to rip people's words from different reviews? You (or, more likely, some intern somewhere) really can't slog together 277 words for your bullshit column? Give me a fucking break, Short Stack.”
Clemmensen issued an apology via his Facebook page, stating "apologies to any reviewers not quoted. arriving home late from a month long promo tour and having the Kanye album review due the next day, I was exhausted, so i foolishly got my friend to do it for me. was unaware that it was plagirised but I accept full responsibility and would once again like to apologize to the journalists I have offended"
