Fans join the online ribbing as Matt Healy drags Maroon 5 for claiming The 1975 copied their album cover art
One of the latest (and hilarious) feuds between celebrity artistes has just reached a tipping point on social media. This time, it's between the music icons Maroon 5 and The 1975, who have traded jibes with each other on Twitter. Other artistes then chipped in on the debate, and the Twitterverse had a nice, long laugh together.
It all started when the talented British rockers The 1975 unveiled the artwork for their new single, 'Me & You Together Song' which will be part of their forthcoming studio album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’, which was recently pushed back to a February 2020 release.
However, the pop art-esque cover for the new single didn't escape the attention of the band Maroon 5, who noticed that it closely resembled their album artwork for their 1997 release, 'The Fourth World', back when the American pop-rock band went by the name Kara's Flowers - they changed it circa 2001.
In a spiky tweet posted by Maroon 5, they pointed out the similarities between the cover art of the two musical releases, saying, "Hey @the1975, you guys big Kara’s Flowers fans?" accompanied by photos of the two music releases side by side. They certainly do look like they're mimicking each other, but this kind of 4-color art motif has been around for a while now, and has been seen on quite a few album covers and film posters over the past few decades.
While it may have been a good-natured ribbing from the American band, The 1975 responded with typical British dry humor. Pat came the biting reply from their singer Matt Healy, who said, "I don’t know what the fuck that is but I love that song about being in a phone box or whatever it is." Ouch! Healy was dismissively referring to Maroon 5’s 2012 hit 'Payphone' which featured Wiz Khalifa... which you've probably forgotten about by now.
Considering the two bands are poles apart when it comes to musical tastes, we can safely assume that Healy was taking the mickey out of Maroon 5. And other artistes were quick to join in on the fun. The Nashville rockers Hot Chelle Rae pointed out the similarity to their second studio album's artwork - their 'Whatever' record was released way back in 2011, and presumably slipped under Maroon 5's radar. Hot Chelle Rae upped the ante (and humor) by posting "Well, this is awkward... one of us is going to have to change" and posted a picture of their artwork along with the hashtags "#whoworeitbest #whatever."
"Whatever" is probably the best stance on the matter, because if even a basic four-color artwork is going to be considered someone's intellectual property, we're going to be swamped with copyright infringement claims in the near future. As one fan sardonically barked back at Maroon 5 over the whole art theft debate - "Didn't know you guys were the art police omg." Other music fans on social media were quick to point out the nonsense behind this cover-gate scandal - "Literally no one knows what Kara's Flowers is," said one fan, and another follower posted, 'You've made yourselves look like fools but whatever." Yeah. Well. You know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.