Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Geoff Barrow definitely wouldn't. The Portishead member was not flattered when he accused the Weeknd and Phantogram of plagiarism over a decade ago, nor when he alleged that Lil Pump sampled him without permission in 2019 and then made the same claim about Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign in 2024. Now, he says composer Harry Escott's new score for ITV's Gone rips off his and Ben Salisbury's 2020 Devs score.
He, at the very least, is having fun with it. On Instagram, he posted a creative video explaining the situation with a "Score Police" officer graphic and a voiceover explaining the issue and comparing two audios. In the caption, he said Escott admitted to copying the Devs score. Here's what he wrote in full:
So then as promised.
About 4 months ago both me and Ben separately heard this on this tv show ,we contacted our agent he then spoke to the composer who admitted he’d copied our score for DEVS and had told the director that it was fair to close to use.
He obviously didn’t think so.
So we decided to make this little film featuring director Richard Layton’s interview after the series had come out.
As composers we all have to chase temp scores we’ve done it ourselves many times. But it’s time that producers and directors realise you can’t just be Riping off professionals in your own industry and get away with it
TAA RAA
(PS we don’t need any pseudo Musicologyst
Takes on this as the composer has already fessed up he ripped it off )
The musician has been posting about it since April without revealing what show he was talking about. Hopefully this will be solved soon so no one has to go to Score Jail.
