Allan’s World of Music

What do the Mystery Jets have in common with Coldplay and Crystal Castles? Plagiarism. Though Coldplay’s plagiarism is very basic and Crystal Castles’ track went unreleased, the Mystery Jets’ “Young Love” was a major hit and was even the reason behind me checking out “Twenty One” in the first place.

However “Young Love” is almost identical to the song “Way Back Into Love” by Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett off the Music & Lyrics soundtrack. The guitar intro to Young Love is identical to the piano intro of the song. The topics are the same and the vocals match identically to a tee. Both songs are actually duets with Young Love being with Laura Marling taking the latter of the song and Hugh Grant having a minimal part. (Thanks to Mimi for the find).

A lot of the YouTubers have already discovered this but they remain shallow such as “the guys are hot so therefore I’ll keep liking them”. Unfortunately for the Jets I’m not as shallow and I take music copying seriously.

Anyway it’s hard to get by that they stole a track to be honest. A lot of their other tracks are not as good and while they list themselves as Pop/Powerpop/Pop Punk, they are barely Punk and add no punch to their songs to even remotely have any mention with the word “power”.

MJ another track on the album, sounds eerily like a We Are Scientist track. Two Doors Down is Cure inspired track but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was copied :P.

I think I’m a little rubbed the wrong way with their “punk” look in their videos as well is funny as they are basically the epitome of pop.

The Mystery Jets have alright arrangements, some interesting stuff here and there but not really anything amazing and are typical of a mainstream pop band. Which also makes it funny for calling themselves indie. You wish. They are signed onto a Warner-backed label and if they want to be called indie, let’s give them the indie rock criticism they deserve.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5.
For not providing anything interesting, more then half the songs I don’t particularly like (even though I do like indie pop a whole lot). It plays itself really safe, the band’s image makes it okay for me use the pretentious card, and they like to copy Hugh Grant.

Check out: Way Back Into Love and Young Love

Young Love by The Mystery Jets

Two Doors Down by the Mystery Jets

Way Back Into Love by Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett

22 Comments for “Mystery Jets - Twenty One Review”

1. Bum — July 5, 2008 @ 6:04 am
   
   

   Learn to write.

2. Allan — July 5, 2008 @ 6:13 am
   
   

   learn to write something meaningful.

3. josep — July 5, 2008 @ 8:10 am
   
   

   your attitude towards music is very wrong, you should stop writing.

4. davey — July 5, 2008 @ 8:46 am
   
   

   what bs

5. Bum — July 5, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
   
   

   “MJ another track on the album, sounds eerily like a We Are Scientist track. Two Doors Down is Cure inspired track but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was copied :P.”

   This a terrible piece of writing: Obviously there are similarities between “Young Love” & “Way back into Love’, but the way you have chosen to highlight this is appalling. Then to insuate that the Mystery Jets have ripped off the Cure? Not a fan of the band then.

   Why not write about music that inspires you. What’s the point in writing this rambling, turgid diatribe about artists you dont like. Make love not war.

   You give blogging a bad name.

6. Allan — July 5, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
   
   

   “You give blogging a bad name”

   Please go fuck yourself. I could care less if I gave blogging a bad name, I’m sorry if the responsibility rests on my shoulders to write things you agree with.

   I write about music that inspires me all the time, did you bother to check out all my over posts about music I dug?

   I did enjoy the song Young Love and as a fan I was fairly pissed that this music was a blatant ripoff. Is it appalling to highlight that? Can’t critics look at something and say “hey” this is really close to another song and dock it points for exactly that?

   Teachers do it.

   You can argue to me about the validity of this review by making some points as I have on the album.

   I feel like they ripped off a song and the rest of the album wasn’t that good anyway for me to simply “ignore” it. This album was an average at BEST album imo and everything from their look and calling themselves indie to other genres other then “pop” really turned me off.

   If you don’t like what you’re reading, go away and come back another day (or not at all).

7. Bum — July 5, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
   
   

   It is not appalling to highlight the similarities between 2 records: “The way you have chosen to highlight this is appalling”.
   Let me expand on this: You could have written an intelligent, informed article on how the MJ’s have borrowed parts of “Way back into Love”. Instead you come up with some inane bullshit insuating that The Mystery Jets rip off other bands for their tunes. It just comes across as an immature rant.
   It’s obvious your not a fan, but to close your post with comments such as ‘they like to copy Hugh Grant’ is unbelievable.

   Please go & Fuck YOURself. And do us all a favour and never write again.

   Toodles xx

8. Allan — July 5, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
   
   

   lol i’d keep writing just to piss you off

   So writing that the MJ’s “borrowed” parts of the track Way back into love is more informative and intelligent?

   That’s called putting it nicely and I cut straight to the shit.

   I don’t hate the band but copying of music should be taken very seriously and once one song is copied it puts their credibility in doubt and you can’t look at every song the same.

   It’s obvious you are a fan of the band :P. Just enjoy your average “borrowed” music.

9. Bum — July 6, 2008 @ 7:30 am
   
   

   I’m not a huge fan of the band: ‘21′ is certainly not without it’s flaws. As i’ve mentioned before, it’s the way you have chosen to write this article. Anyone with half a brain reading your review could only come to the conclusion that your a complete moron.
   You write bullshit statements about the MJ’s ripping off the Cure, being a pretentious band & copying Hugh Grant. You sound like some bratty, irrational teenager.
   I’ve met the band & you couldn’t meet nicer blokes. The complete opposite of pretentious. They certainly don’t style themselves on Hugh Grant either.
   I’ve never left a comment on a blog before but your stupid, pathetic, moronic statements have to be highlighted.
   Without doubt the worst example of sloppy, lazy, Half arsed writing i’ve ever seen online. You should be very proud.

   See ya x

10. Allan — July 6, 2008 @ 11:22 am
    
    

    “Anyone with half a brain reading your review could only come to the conclusion that your a complete moron.”

    Anyone with a full brain would come to the conclusion that it’s part of writing a negative review. I didn’t say they were pretentious based off their sound.

    Your a fucking idiot to get so riled up from what I’ve said.

    Anyone with a full brain would probably at least see where I’m attacking the album from.

    Just go away. You’re one of those pricks who is just insulting because you didn’t like what you read. You make BS points. I don’t see how my points were really an issue.

    The Cure are a great band to influence off of, the lead singer seems to have a Robert Smith style hairdo. And didn’t anyone listen to the track? They definitely ripped off that song by Grant and Bennett.

    You have not said one meaningful thing other then “don’t write again”. Therefore you shall go fuck yourself.

11. Bum — July 6, 2008 @ 11:50 am
    
    

    “I don’t see how my points were really an issue” Therein lies the problem amigo. You’re not very bright are you?
    Been seeing ya REAL soon..

12. Allan — July 6, 2008 @ 11:53 am
    
    

    Thanks for ignoring my points and just taking that out context.

    You’re not worth my time.

13. N — July 6, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
    
    

    Giving away all the bands singles for free and then slagging them off, and all the time benefitting from the adds on your blog?? Pathetic. The lowest type of whinging blogging.

14. Leper — July 6, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
    
    

    What a pile of shit.

15. Allan — July 6, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
    
    

    “Giving away all the bands singles for free and then slagging them off, and all the time benefitting from the adds on your blog?? Pathetic. The lowest type of whinging blogging.”

    Haha, it happens all the time. If MJ’s management doesn’t want me to have the singles up which are widely available online anyway then I’d take them off.

    I wanted people to HEAR what I was talking about. More important then giving stuff for ‘free’.

    Besides in exchange for offering those free singles which you can clearly listen to online and rip for yourself off YouTube, I’m giving them free press.

    You have every right to start a blog and write the heck you want.

16. Web Sheriff — July 7, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
    
    

    CEASE & DESIST:

    For heinous and multiple crimes against the English language, please close this blog immediately. You have 48 hours to comply.

    Web Sheriff

17. Allan — July 7, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
    
    

    That one is funny I must say :).

18. Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs | Allan's World of Music — July 11, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
    
    

    [...] Mystery Jets - Twenty One Review [...]

19. tony — July 18, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
    
    

    wow… some people are just so dumb. allan… you have the right to express whatever you feel about whatever you want to. Your points and reasons are completely valid. I found the MJ song catchy, but after listening to the Grant version, anyone can see that the MJ version ripped off/ borrowed / inspired…. call it whatever you want to call it… but its just not original, which makes a critical listener also question if the rest of MJ’s works are original or not. You make your own point about their image as well which people can agree with or not.

    Burn read your critique with a closed mind, because burn had already listened to the music, met the band… found them to be nice people… but that is not the point you were making. Allan, you were talking strictly about their music and their image. Burn is a crazy, closed minded loon.

20. Allan — July 18, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
    
    

    Thanks for the support. I don’t like to insult a band’s image but I just decided that it bothered me.

    As for Burn, they don’t really bother me. I welcome them back if they can make points other then my writing sucking.

21. Scott Tennorman — July 25, 2008 @ 8:51 am
    
    

    I’ll admit I’m not a massive Mystery Jets fan, I dont own any albums and I have a few songs on my iPod which i listen to rarely. But still, that article was awful. Who cares if they plagarised a song? I garuntee if you look deep enough into it you’ll be able to prove that every song in the history of existance is a plagarism of something, and we can go back to when the cavemen were banging simple beats on a stone. It’s called art and this is how it evolves.

    As for the look, why dont you take a photo of yourself and post it up on here and I’ll tell you everything thats wrong with you.

22. Allan — July 25, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
    
    

    “Who cares if they plagiarized a song?”

    Some songs take influences from songs but they have a new spin on it. When choruses, lyrics and melodies are identical then it’s a problem because that’s the whole song. Fundamentally the songs are way too close. The MJ’s track was not evolved at all.

    LOL Scott Tennorman, you’re probably an ugly ass. If you enjoy their “indie friendly music go ahead. I was criticizing them because they aren’t very indie at all.

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