Polysics

Said_Head, Feb 26, 2009

I was introduced to this band by a friend and for a while was hooked. Their haze of post-punk/new wave/electronica is unique, cartoony but intelligent and often mind-blowing, which of course reminds people of the band DEVO. The similarities to DEVO, however, go anywhere from extremely flattering moments of influence to downright offending plagiarism. For todays young alternative music lovers this band has a lot of shock value and creative attitude, but anyone familiar with the bands fathers, per se, will probably be confused that the band can be called anything like unique. Even many of their videos are very much alike with DEVOs, almost to the extent of embarrassment.

Take Polysics wardrobe and artwork for instance: instantly recognizable by DEVO fans. Polysics looks more like a tribute band than anything.

And naturally a lot of Polysics music is directly inspired by DEVO recordings, like their own cover of DEVOs cover of Secret Agent Man. The song literally sounds just like DEVOs, not to mention the number of other DEVO songs theyve covered. Also, the song Polysics Or Die is suspicially like Jocko Homo, where the vocalists spell out the word POLYSICS.

But whats worse is the band has in the past couple years fallen prey to being big shots in the US, causing their usually quirky music to fall into the usual, excessively poppy commercialized affair.

Basically, if you dont mind near-copyright infringment and want some extra DEVO fix, check this band out; dont get me wrong, theyre very talented and I own a number of their releases which I enjoy, but sometimes the likeness is just too much.

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