There’s only one thing worse than waking up to the sound of Jo Whiley’s patronising piffle and that’s waking up to the sound of Whiley and Chris Martin’s bum-chumming piffle.
Yes, Monday marked the biennial get-together of the Radio One Terrahawk and Bono Mk 2, were they shared an hour of wince-inducing flirtation which inevitably resulted in the airing of The Chris Martin Band‘s new aural toss.
Then, this being The Chris Martin Band, they played it again. All day.
First impressions: Plodding. Beige. Like being stuck in a nine-hour traffic jam. Utter gash.
Once again, a band with more money than the whole of Africa, have chosen to forsake danger and play it unutterably safe with a piano-led mid-tempo number which is as forgettable as it is redundant in anything remotely verging on fun.
In among the hilarious juvenile banter between Whiley and Martin, the latter made two quite brilliant statements:
1) Watch out for the killer Jonny Buckland guitar solo.
2) He wanted school kids who like The Chris Martin Band to stand up and be proud of being a fan, instead of getting picked on in the playground.
Point one: Said ‘killer’ solo consists of five notes repeated several times through a wimpy distortion pedal and has a similar impact on the ear to when a Mitsubishi Warrior collides with a midgy.
Point two: LOLZ. Kids don’t listen to The Chris Martin Band. They listen to hip-hop, High School Musical or quality pop music.
The vast majority of Chris Martin Band fans are those that HATE kids, read The Daily Mail, despise hoodie-wearing teenagers and don’t actually listen to music.
They think going in HMV is rock & roll and much prefer to buy their music in Sainsbury’s and give it a whirl while washing dishes, ironing or maybe on train rides while drawing graphs for important business meetings.
This is one of the key reasons why kids don’t go to Glastonbury – because The Sodding Chris Martin Band have headlined the bugger for two of the last five years.
See the most grating aspect of The Chris Martin Band is not just the insufferable guff that comes out of his mouth at alarming regularity, it’s that the band haven’t produced anything of note (with the slight exception of Fix You) for over five years and yet people genuinely buy into their product.
And the main reason: they’ve switched off from actually listening and in the meantime the mass media force-feeds the product and dull uncles in tan slip-ons wallop it up like junkies on aural methadone; not to enjoy but to endure and get their fix.
All the while bands actually making fascinating, world-beating records get shunted out the way so that baby Apple‘s trust-fund swells to the size of Chris Martin‘s ego.
Ho hum. Have a badge.
The Chris Martin Band: Violet Hill.
