The easiest way to tell the current trends in the music industry has always been to look to the world of pop, arguably the only genre overwhelmingly influenced by the current cultural climate.
Underground trends and musical nuances appear in pop music all the time, from Katy Perry embracing the trap movement on 'Dark Horse' earlier this year to more recent news like Madonna reportedly working with PC Music extraordinaire SOPHIE.
No overstating necessary, at least once a week we'll receive an email submission from a band clearly influenced by The 1975, bringing together those signature jagged guitars and huge pop melodies with atmospheric and emotional vocal delivery (seriously, some of the comparisons have been ridiculous).
It's perhaps less heinous for a young new band to openly embrace their influence in this way, but for the biggest boy band in the world it seems like a strange move to use someone else's core sound so obviously.
One Direction released their fourth album Four earlier this week, and one track in particular from the deluxe edition caught our attention when it came on, prompting us to immediately check we hadn't unintentionally put our entire music library on shuffle.
From the first second, One Direction's 'Change Your Ticket' seems to be a direct replica of The 1975's 'Girls' with only the guitar strum pattern changed ever so slightly, needless to say, it's pretty shameless.
Check out 'Change Your Ticket' below:
... and now 'Girls'
In defence of One Direction, it was reported earlier this year (from Matty Healy's mum nonetheless) that the boyband were working with The 1975, however looking at the writing/production credits on the album shows no sign of a collaboration - so time wil tell.
Neither band have commented on this yet, however the comparison will no doubt get people talking in the future.
