Song, by Toad

Sometimes promo people send me stuff so mismatched to my tastes I really shake my head at the waste of plastic, packaging and postage. Save yourselves the time and just sling it straight in the trash yourselves, for fuck’s sake. Sometimes, instead of just to me, this happens to the whole world at once. Meet the Hoosiers. If ever an album needed to go straight in the bin it is this garbage. It makes Athlete and Hard Fi seem like serious bands. It even suffers when compared to the scrotum-shrivellingly awful Maroon 5.

And it is Maroon 5 who perhaps are the most interesting comparison. Just look at the comments under this BBC review of the Hoosiers’ album. Poking about the internets, these lads just can’t buy a good review, and for very good reason: they’re rubbish. Limp, lifeless, criminally derivative and absolutely devoid of the barest scrapings of charm needed to moisten even Paris Hilton’s gusset. But look at those comments on the Beeb, and check out that other everyman review site, Amazon. This is a popular album. It’s even – *gulp* – in the charts.

The Guardian wrote a piece recently about Maroon 5 which opened with the following line: “They’ve sold 2m albums in the UK, 10m in the US. But they can’t get a good review.” Again, perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that they peddle a sort of spineless, neutered Argos Catalogue pop that carries all the emotional impact of a half-eaten Pot Noodle. But it is popular, and so are the Hoosiers.

It is easy in our insulated internet world of like-minded folks – who, let’s face it, we would never have found were it not for the wonders of the Information Super-cul-de-sac – to forget that things are popular because lots of people like them. Lots and lots of people. Remember how XFM used to be a really good radio station? Well since they were bought out and had the sperm drained from their testicles they have simply become more and more popular instead of, more deservingly, being dropped like a ginger step-child.

Basically, people like utter garbage and the general population’s taste is woefully bland. People are fucking shit. They shop at WalMart and Morrison’s, they buy Supermarket Pop like this dross, they watch Big Brother, and I’m a Celebrity, Tuck an Angry Hornet Under My Foreskin*. They buy a Ford Focus and drink in the Hogshead and All Bar One. They shop as a pastime, not as an obligation. Most people are fucking dismal, boring, dead, spiritless fucking ghosts.

And to communicate with them in a cool an unpretentious manner, record label marketing people write shite like this, from the Hoosiers’ RCA label page:

For those of you who have only just discovered The Hoosiers I will start at the start, for those who claim prior knowledge of The Hoosiers, I suggest you skip this bit and join us at the next paragraph. Deal?

Quickly, for I have little time as I must pop to the shop to pick up some milk: The Hoosiers (formerly The Hoosier Complex) are a triumvirate of odd-pop from Exeter, Reading and Stockholm. Before they were a three piece, they were a two piece and before that they were three one pieces. Its simple maths really, not rocket surgery – which, ironically, is where Irwin, (vocal “assaultist”) met Alfonso – formerly Alan (stick-ferret/drums) – ten years prior, in a local school band named Ronnie Rocket and the Rocket Surgeons.

No, no fucking deal. You make this deal with what remains of the empty shell of achingly meaningless tedium that you call a life if you so please, but only if you truly have not one last spark of spirit or dignity left in your dead soul.

What depresses me the most is that in most people’s view, the title of this album is entirely accurate. The Trick to Life for most people, it would appear, is to aspire to this sort of hellish existence, sound-tracked by, erm, whom, I wonder? Well at the bottom of the Hoosiers’ RCA page it recommends that, if you like the Hoosiers, try the following: Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson, Natasha Bedingfield, Sandi Thom, Lil’ Chris and The Fray. These people do their research depressingly well.

The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo!
Johnny Boy – You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
Radiohead – No Surprises
Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching

*The actual program may be called something slightly different.