Usher's 'OMG' and Homer Simpsons Christmas Carol: Rip-off or Coincidence?

Did Usher rip off an old episode of The Simpsons for his smash hit “OMG”? Probably not. But as the morning DJs at Jackson, Miss.’s Y101.7 radio discovered earlier this year, Usher’s tune sounds amusingly similar in places to a Christmas carol that Homer Simpson attempted to compose in a 2003 episode of the animated Fox sitcom.



A YouTube clip put together by the Y101.7 DJs has been making the Internet rounds today with words like “plagiarism” in the headlines. That’s a little silly. The clip presents just a couple of short lines from each song that share similar cadences. We’re talking about “pow-pow-pow/wow-oh-wow” versus “wow-wow-wow/now-now-now” – much more likely a random coincidence than any kind of conscious or unconscious theft. It’s pretty funny to juxtapose these parts of the two songs out of context, but that’s about it.