I’ve listened to “Leaves,” a song from Miguel’s excellent new album Wildheart, plenty of times, and it’s never once occurred to me that the song sounds anything like the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.” But the songs do have similar guitar riffs, and the two tracks were close enough that Miguel contacted Corgan before his album’s release. Corgan approved the song and got a co-writing credit on “Leaves.” Talking to News.Com.Au, Miguel tells the story of how he subconsciously replicated that guitar riff:

The guitar riff just came to me in such a subconscious way, the song literally wrote itself in minutes… It was kind of reminiscent of ‘1979.’ I was a fan of them growing up, but I never bought their albums or saw them live. It’s weird how some things just sink in… Towards the end of the song when the drum programming kicks in, it’s even more reminiscent. You realize it in a more straight-on way. It’s cool they were cool about everything. It’s all about respect. We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants at this point.

It seems like everyone involved handled this one well. Check out the two songs and see if you think the parallels are worthy of a co-writing credit:

They don’t sound all that close to me, but after the “Blurred Lines” verdict, it makes sense that everyone would want to be careful. On the other hand, it would be great to see Smashing Pumpkins-influenced R&B become a thing.