Now, go stand in the corner and think about what you did — that’s the message Taylor Swift’s fans seem to have for Zach Bryan following his tumultuous split from Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia and her claims that the singer-songwriter emotionally abused her.
The bad blood (sorry) between Bryan and Swifties, of course, has its own recent origins, back when Bryan fired off a spicy tweet: “eagles > chiefs Kanye > Taylor who’s with me.” (Music aside, Bryan is a devoted Philadelphia Eagles fan, and his team did lose to Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 Super Bowl.)
The backlash to the tweet was unsurprisingly swift (sorry, again), prompting Bryan to delete the original tweet and explain in a follow-up that he’d “drunkenly” sent it after listening to Swift’s not-so-subtle Kim Kardashian diss “Thank You Aimee.”
“Guys I love Taylor, was listening to TTPD last night and thank you aimee came on and I drunkenly tweeted about Kanye,” Bryan said. “If anyone took it serious please know I love both artists a lot and think we’re in a really beautiful time of music.” (Even still, Bryan eventually made the always wise decision to just delete his Twitter account all together. Also, it’s worth noting that Swift herself never said anything on the matter.)
While the hostilities dissipated, they came roaring back on social media after LaPaglia aired her allegations against Bryan on BFFs, the Barstool podcast she co-hosts with Josh Richards and (noted Swiftie) Dave Portnoy. Specifically, Swift’s fans have taken to trying to undercut Bryan’s music by alleging that he’s been stealing Swift’s music.
Over the past few days, TikTok has filled up with these plagiarism allegations — though, to our ears, they all seem pretty specious. At most, the lead fiddle melody in Bryan’s “Let You Down” sounds kinda like the lead banjo melody of Swift’s “Should’ve Said No.” (This one even got Portnoy’s suspicious approval.)
But the similarities between Bryan’s “Pink Skies” and Swift’s “Betty” seem to come down to some folksy acoustic guitar picking paired with harmonica, qualities you can find in a whole lot of other songs.
Meanwhile, another person tried to claim that Bryan’s song with John Mayer “Better Days” was a “diabolical” rip off of Swift’s scathing John Mayer break-up tune “Dear John.” But what those songs share in common is the distinct tone of Mayer’s electric guitar playing — something the musician brought himself to “Better Days” and something Swift was ostensibly trying to replicate on her own tune as part of her excoriation.
A rep for Bryan did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment, though fair enough. Something tells us this is not going to turn into one of the great plagiarism disputes of our time.
