Photo: WENN.com
The quote goes ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ but I doubt that the Postal Service or Uffie would agree.
They’re both fantastic, original artists but they’ve fallen short of mass appeal. The Postal Service had just one single reach the billboard charts in America, and it only scraped an entry; Uffie hasn’t even made the singles chart. So why did two songs that sound like second rate tracks from these two acts make the top ten in our singles charts?
Radio One was playing in the background one day and I heard ‘Fireflies’ for the first time. I got excited; I thought the Postal Service were releasing some new material. For those three minutes I didn’t concentrate on my work – I was straining to hear this new, albeit disappointing, track from a band I love.
I honestly thought it was the Postal Service and, when Fearne bloody Cotton announced it was this ‘amazing’ musician called Owl City, I nearly hurled my computer out the third floor windows. It’s never nice to think musicians you respect are being ripped off. Somehow that song hit number two in this week’s charts, so if you haven’t heard it, there’ll be no escaping it for a while.
Have a look at these videos to compare just how similar ‘Fireflies’ is to the Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’
Owl City - 'Fireflies'
Postal Service - 'Such Great Heights'
The same thing happened with Ke$ha and her hit single ‘Tik Tok’ –the spelling of her single annoys me, but not as much as realising it wasn’t Uffie’s comeback that I’ve been waiting a couple of years for; it’s a song by a substandard pop princess whose label have worked out that they can make plenty of pennies from watering down someone else’s style.
People have also started to notice the glaring similarity between the melody of ‘Tik Tok’ and ‘Just Dance’ by Lady Gaga.
Ke$ha - 'Tik Tok'
Uffie - 'Pop The Glock'
The good thing about these songs is that they are muted versions of an existing sound and that simply highlights how good the ripped off artists are. If you play the songs after each other, the comparison highlights a gulf in lyrical ability and all round musical genius.
‘Fireflies’ and the rest of Owl City’s songs are not even remotely comparable to tracks like ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’ or ‘Nothing Better’ by the Postal Service; ‘Tik Tok’ will never be as good as ‘Pop the Glock’ or ‘First Love’ by Uffie.
I know that copying someone else’s sound is nothing new. Hopefully something good could come from the chart domination of these musical carbon copies - Uffie should capitalise on Ke$ha’s inadequacy when she releases her debut album on Valentine’s Day this year. By then the masses of people who enjoyed the horror of ‘Tik Tok’ should be sick of the song’s over exposure on the air waves and be ready for something better. In she’ll waltz with ‘MCs Can Kiss’ and that will be the end of Ke$ha. That’s probably a bit optimistic, but I’ve got to have some faith in the mainstream radio listeners.
And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then I could be wrong; they could be paying tribute to musicians who have inspired them, in the same way that the Midnight Beast have obviously been inspired by Ke$ha. Or they could just be taking the piss too.
The Midnight Beast - 'Tik Tok Parody'
