All I See Is You – Shane Smith and The Saints

A solid tune from a red dirt country band out of Austin, “All I See Is You” is far and away Shane Smith and the Saints‘ most popular song, having been prominently featured in the hit show Yellowstone. (The group also made a cameo appearance in the show.) I’m a big fan of Shane’s voice, and this is a damn catchy song. Some might say it’s too catchy…

To elaborate, a few internet sleuths have deemed “All I See Is You” as a direct ripoff of Avicii‘s mega hit “Wake Me Up.” I have to admit, they are very similar, and Avicii’s song did release two years prior. However, that would be assuming that Shane Smith hadn’t written the song before recording and release. You’d also have to assume that Avicii had sole ownership over one of the most popular and basic chord progressions of all time. Funny enough, one of the first songs I featured on My Taste In Music, “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop, uses the same progression. Iggy put that one out in 1977, a full 12 years before Avicii was born, and even then, I guarantee he is nowhere near the first person to use it. Ed Sheeran was sued for similar accusations by Marvin Gaye‘s estate, and the court ruled in Ed’s favor, essentially saying that no one could “own” such a basic progression that is so widely used across music.

Now, there are more similarities than just the chord progression, and I’ll leave it up to you guys to determine if you think Shane ripped off Avicii. If you want my honest opinion, I don’t think so. Avicii was a great artist in his own right, and if you listened to the radio, turned on the TV, or were in any sort of public space from 2015-19, you had to have heard “Wake Me Up,” whether you wanted to or not. It’s seriously got to be one of the most played songs of all time. (Currently sitting at about two and a half BILLION streams on Spotify alone.) Any time a song gets that big, of course, people are going to gravitate toward a certain sound. Or, perhaps Shane was trying to follow a formula to make a hit. Who knows? Who cares? I don’t think “All I See Is You” will ever reach the heights that “Wake Me Up” did. Avicii’s estate isn’t losing any sleep (or money) over it.

I really like both songs, and I enjoy a lot of Avicii’s work as well, but my personal preference is typically country over pop any day of the week, so there may be some bias involved. I am a big fan of Shane Smith & Co. and will feature more of their work later on, and maybe even some Avicii as well.

I included a link to a cool mashup of the two songs below as well.

Link to song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjak2LnYlrA

Link to live – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEoW9W56EJA

Link to Wake Me Up – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrbM1l_BoI

Link to mashup – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8EcVFgeKoE