Proving that rock music with classic strains still has considerable appeal in the modern age, the Australian band Jet debuted in the U.S. with their first album Get Born on September 14, 2003. Taking its title from a line in Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” the album goes on to sell 3.5 million albums worldwide. Its sound displays such deep influences as The Beatles and Stones as well as fellow Aussies AC/DC, among others, all updated for a new era.
No surprise there as the band’s founding brothers, singer/guitarist Nic Cester and drummer Chris Cester, had been weaned and reared on their father’s collection of classic rock albums from the 1960s and ’70s.
The soul-flavored rocker “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” was the album’s first single. It hit #29 on the Hot 100, and reached #7 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and #3 on Modern Rock Tracks.
Another single from Get Born, “Cold Hard Bitch,” hit #1 on the U.S. Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks charts in 2004. And “Look What You’ve Done” reached #37 on the Hot 100 and became a fan favorite.
Related: The #1 singles from 25 years earlier
Further confirmation of Jet’s rock stature was being asked to open for The Rolling Stones on the band’s 2003 tour of Australia. Like Oasis in the previous decade, Jet proved by their global popularity that rock music still had considerable appeal. After two more albums – Shine On in 2006 and 2009’s Shaka Rock – and sales on all three LPs totaling 6.5 million, the band called it quits in March of 2012.
They reformed in 2016 and opened for many of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s 2017 Australia and New Zealand dates. They returned for a 20th anniversary tour in 2023 playing Get Born in its entirety.
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Not only did this group have the same name as a famous McCartney hit, but they also had Billy Preston on the album. And “Look What you’ve Done” is tremendously evocative of “Sexy Sadie.” I wish a lot more Y2K acts were as talented and intelligently influenced.