Entertainment

The Vamps Are Serving One Direction Realness

by Alex Kritselis

June 10, 2014

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

On Monday, U.K. boy band The Vamps premiered the music video for their new Demi Lovato-assisted single, “Somebody to You,” and you will be SHOCKED at how much it reminds you of One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” video. Shocked, I tell you! The songs themselves have a similar sound, as well — which isn’t really surprising when you consider that they were both co-written by two of the same people (Carl Falk and Savan Kotecha) — but when I watched the “Somebody to You” video for the first time, I experienced some serious déjà vu.

A little bit about The Vamps: the four-member group released their debut album, Meet The Vamps, across Europe this past April. No, sadly, you can’t buy this adorable boy band’s music in the United States just yet. Lovato hopped on “Somebody to You” after the album had already been released, presumably to help the guys score some additionally radio airplay — but the song doesn’t really need her. Strangely enough, she apparently wasn’t even available to shoot the video at the same time as the group, and consequently, all of her shots take place in a different location. It’s kind of awkward.

Now, I like both bands a lot — I don’t think that The Vamps copied 1D or anything like that. It’s just that when you take two boy bands with the same target demographic and put them on the beach, some similar shenanigans are bound to go down. I guess I had no idea that there were so many boy band music video conventions and clichés.

Here we go...