Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has released a video promising to 'protect the most vulnerable' and work for the country with music that sounds eerily similar to a song written by convicted peadophile Gary Glitter playing over it.
The video, which is a compilation of Sunak's soundbites, including calling US President Joe Biden and promising to earn the trust of the country, was released this morning, Friday October 28, at 10.07am and uses a drumbeat echoing that of Rock n Roll (Part 2), released in 1972 by the disgraced singer.
In response to criticism on social media, a Downing Street spokesman told journalists on Friday morning that the drumming used was from a stock selection of music it did not pay for and was not Glitter's track. Indeed, although the music accompanying Sunak's video is very similar to that on the Glitter track, they are not the same.
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Music columnist Mark Davyd commented on the similarity between the tracks, saying: "I don't want to tell 10 Downing Street media how to do their job, but that appears to be a sampled drum loop from a Gary Glitter record?"
See Rishi Sunak's video here:
And hear the similarities and differences from Glitter's track here:
Rock n Roll (Part 2) has been widely used in sports, film and TV but has been controversial since the 78-year-old, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed for sexually abusing three young girls between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being found guilty by a jury at Southwark Crown Court .
Glitter's paedophilia first came to light in 1997 when he was caught with 4,000 images of child sexual abuse. He was first jailed in 1999 for downloading images of child abuse. He was then jailed in Vietnam in 2006 for molesting two girls aged 11 and 12 before being released in 2008.
Rock n Roll (Part 2) which Glitter co-wrote with Mike Leander was used in the 2019 Joker film as Joaquin Pheonix's character dances down some steps. In a report from 2019, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Gadd would not recieve any royalties for the usage of the track, since the rights were owned by Universal Music Publishing Group and BMG in the US. “Gary Glitter’s publishing interest in the copyright of his songs is owned by U.M.P.G. and other parties, therefore U.M.P.G. does not pay him any royalties or other considerations,” Universal told The Los Angeles Times in a statement.
Here in the UK, the rights are reported to be owned by Snapper Music, who said back in 2019 that the company had owned the master rights to his music since 1997, adding that “he is not entitled to, nor have we paid, any royalties” to him.
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