Behold the battle of V versus VS. It's spooky how two bands with similar names have so many key ingredients in common.

V are five chiselled young guys, VS are five youngsters (two girls, three lads) and both are the usual song-and-dance acts of today, relying more on urban dance moves than songs.

Spookily, their albums came out simultaneously, with practically identical cover artwork. Both rely upon pilfering others' work for their best moments. V have nicked The Jacksons' Can You Feel It?, which is a pleasant enough pop cover but leaves you sad at the scandalous decline of Michael Jackson.

Meanwhile, VS sample Imagination's Body Talk, renamed as Call U Sexy and have scored a minor hit with Chicago's If You Leave Me Now.

How telling that the choreographers, photographers and press agents receive more acknowledgment than the writers and musicians on each disc. Worse still, V and VS completely resemble other bands. V are nothing but another pastiche of Busted or McFly and, indeed, Tom and Danny from McFly join the V boys on Chills In The Evening. VS are a doppelganger for Liberty X.

Although V and VS are now having moderate pop success, the most obvious common bond is that the fickle world of pop will forget both bands before school's out this summer.

Updated: 10:27 Thursday, January 13, 2005