Posted by Emily Exton on 04/23/2012 at 1:34 PM News

The Popdust Files: darren criss, feuds, glee, gotye, kimbra, somebody that i used to know

No quote makes the rounds more than that of an artist who’s criticizing someone else’s interpretation of their song—or a blatant rip off of their track (See: Madonna’s “interesting” comments from earlier this year). Following the arrival of “Somebody That I Used To Know” to the top spot on the Hot 100 last week, Gotye now has some words for the Glee cover that arguably helped push it to #1. “They did such a faithful arrangement of the instruments but the vocals were that pop Glee style, ultra dry, sounded pretty tuned and the rock has no real sense, like it’s playing to you from a cardboard box,” he told Australia’s Courier-Mail, later describing it as “dinky and wrong” when speaking to Sydney’s Herald Sun. Performed by Darren Criss and guest star Matt Bomer, the show adapted the song to relate to the prickly relationship of the Anderson brothers. Admittedly Bomer’s singing isn’t the strongest—he’s guest star for a reason (reasons?)—but aside from diverging symbolism between the two versions, we’d rarely call Darren Criss dry. He even admitted he wasn’t trying to replicate the voice of Kimbra, but merely have some fun, and add his own iTunes magic touch to the already popular track if business managers have any say in the matter. That’s why its called an “interpretation,” yes?

No word on what the performers, Ryan Murphy or FOX think on the matter, but it appears we should all chill on sending Gotye our DIY versions of his songs, at least for a month of two. Feel free to add this one-sided disagreement to the feud books. Also, ratings may be down, but publicly speaking out about not liking Glee is still cool, apparently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cay2dnuhcs