You know it’s a good week when I can talk about Pour Some Sugar On Me, not once, but twice!  Today’s reason for the Sugar comes from boy band One Direction.  One Direction’s new album is causing quite a stir, not so much because of its rock influence, but because of it’s alleged rock copying.  One song on that record, Midnight Memories caught the attention of Def Leppard, with Def Leppard reportedly deciding whether One Direction’s song is legally too similar to Pour Some Sugar On Me.  During the morning radio show, Los Angeles pop radio station KIIS-FM played snippets of both songs, with everyone in the background chiming in that the One Direction song ripped off Def Leppard.  Interestingly, everyone knew the Lep’s song!  So much for rock music being unknown in the younger generation or being irrelevant to pop radio!

Not finished there, the djs pointed out that another One Direction song on the same record, Does He Know, sounds like Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl, not so much of a rock song, but still of that era.  And this is not new to One Direction.  A prior song of theirs, Best Song Ever, was alleged to rip off a riff from the Who’s Baba O’Riley, but in the summer Pete Townsend gave his approval for that use, knocking it up to the use of the same three-chords that were popularized by the likes of Chuck Berry before The Who.

Any way this goes, it shows you that what is fresh now is good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll.  I think we are just a blink of the eye away from rock making it back mainstream.  So a word to the kiddies out there, hang onto your hats, you’re gonna love this stuff!  And a word to the boy bands, I know Leps is super-duper fab, but make sure the new rock is … yours!

Compare for yourself: One Direction/Def Leppard (listen to One Direction at 0:38):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwR28rJP4cM#t=52

The original, the one and only, Leps:

A “mash-up” with Jessie’s Girl and the One Direction song, Does He Know (I couldn’t find the One Direction song alone):