Jet, 'Get Born'

There is nothing remotely original about ‘Get Born’. You will have heard it all before. Indeed you may think that some of the tracks are covers they sound that familiar and the three-chord sequences behind the record is nothing if not derivative. For those of you not keen on surprises, look away now…gone? Good. Here’s the thing: the record is majestic and succeeds because of these attributes, not despite them.

The band are Australian and it would be remiss to point out that AC/DC is as necessary to Jet’s raison d’etre as breathing is to rest of the world (Jet presumably included). The Aussie veterans back catalog punctuates ‘Get Born’ at every opportunity. But at least Jet are wearing their influences proudly on their sleeves: British bands Oasis and The Verve can also take some unintended credit for the part they clearly played on the stereos in Nic and Chris Cester’s childhood home.

But let’s not dismiss ‘Get Born’ as some sort of contrived experiment in refusing to update the wheel. The songs contained within the album would be readily snapped up by the aforementioned names. ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ was demanded to be sung aloud and once heard, is never forgotten. No wonder millions of iPod’s were sold on the back of it - if it didn’t exist Apple would have probably ended up inventing it. ‘Rollover D.J’ is similarly stompy in nature: you’ll pick up your air guitar whether you want to or not. And when they launch into ‘Cold Hard B****’, well, you’ll fill in the blanks yourself. More reflective musings are available with ‘Look What You’ve Done’ and ‘Move On’, which brings with it a soupcon of country tinged rock. It’s hard to recall a more enjoyable listening experience from a debut album. But when Cester’s refined vocal tells us that “this won’t be played on your radio” during the magnificent ‘Radio Song’, it’s abundantly clear that it’s the only time this brutally honest band are lying to us.