While The Weeknd’s reputation has hardly been crippled by these accusations-his foray into ’80s dance-pop on After Hours has been largely interpreted as a conscious tribute as opposed to theft-Sheeran’s fast-accruing legacy of allegedly copying his peers’ homework has left a larger imprint on the way his artistry is perceived and questioned by the public, which makes “Bad Habits” feel like another liability rather than a savvy segue into the updated disco sounds of the new decade.Ĭuriously, the most notable and widely discussed of these allegations didn’t involve a lawsuit at all, but resulted in Sheeran accepting defeat when he preemptively credited Xscape members Kandi Burruss (also a cast member on The Real Housewives of Atlanta) and Tameka “Tiny” Harris on his smash hit “Shape of You'” in 2017 after social media users suggested that the song’s pre-chorus sounded like TLC’s “No Scrubs,” which the pair co-wrote. It’s interesting that The Weeknd is considered a main point of reference for Sheeran’s new work, not just because his recent music is so obviously inspired by artists before him but because both musicians have attracted several plagiarism lawsuits in the relatively short time they’ve been in the public eye. The song’s themes of indulgence and self-destruction (“my bad habits lead to late nights endin’ alone / conversations with a stranger I barely know / swearing this will be the last, but it probably won’t”) set over an ’80s dance beat have also struck some as similar to The Weeknd’s blockbuster album, including The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis who highlighted his “influence in its lyrical conflation of sex with wracked, compulsive hedonism.”
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