A Russian rock legend says Radiohead's new music video rips him off

Russian rock legend and “Time Machine” frontman Andrey Makarevich isn’t happy about the music video for “Lift,” a new release by the band Radiohead that he says ripped off one of his group’s videos from 2001. In both music videos, a man stands in an elevator and different passengers board and exit, throughout the song.

“Very messed up how the band Radiohead ripped off its video ‘Lift’ from our video ‘A Lighted Place.’ Time Machine and I filmed that on September 11, 2001,” Makarevich wrote on Facebook (though the song has nothing to do with the better known events of that day in September 2001).

In “Lift,” Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke rides an elevator while a host of different people, some strange and others ordinary, get on and off.

In “A Lighted Place,” released 16 years earlier, Makarevich takes roughly the same ride, sharing an elevator with children, skimpily dressed models, men in riot gear, and others.

But let’s not forget the dramatic differences! In Radiohead’s music video, the elevator is descending, and Thom Yorke is carrying shopping bags. In Time Machine’s video, Makarevich has a backpack slung over his shoulder. The videos also end differently: Yorke meets a doppelganger, whereas Makarevich falls asleep on the elevator floor.

Admittedly, Makarevich might only have been joking. If not, Meduza wishes to bring to his attention these other two music videos that also stole viciously from his band's 2001 elevator music masterpiece: