Will Izzy’s boss ever let her listen to decent music?

Will Marxsbeard ever receive the $500,000 owed to him by the Nigerian prince?

Will Matthew ever come out of the closet and admit that he fancies Chris Martin?

Tune in next time for the next thrilling installment…

Chris Martin’s talent, Dylan, isn’t the guitar or the voice or anything, it’s the kind of melody that is bland enough to be inoffensive, but distinctive enough to stick in people’s heads. It may make for tedious music, but there’s no denying that it’s a talent. He could probably make a fortune writing advertising jingles. Oh wait, he already does.

I’m no great shakes as a musician, but I’m quite confident that I could play every musical part on every Coldplay song I’ve ever heard.

And I can definitely sing better than that Martin wanker.

I don’t think that’s an argument you can level at Noah And The Whale or many of their other companions who loiter around Primrose Hill and Camden, though. I do think it’s clear that their sound has been sanitised by the record company and the rough edges have been sanded smooth. Which is a shame.

I often what would happen what would happen to a band like this if the record company weren’t to interfere with the sound, but still lend the same weight of promotion. Would it have the same appeal to the greater public?

*My earlier spelling of ‘democracy’ is taken from the original Greek. I spelled it that way twice just so you’d be sure.

Cows/Marx – I am just wondering if people could easily have latched onto N&tW when they were smaller and perhaps seemed a bit more charming. Put in a less, I don’t know, insistent environment I could imagine liking them enough if I’d only heard a few songs and such like. Then they get big, don’t quite cut the mustard and have the quirky edges sanded off them by their producer and everyone starts being mean, but you’re still left with the impression of the decent, fairly enjoyable band from that night down the pub. Would the weak album detract from that impression? Probably I suppose, unless you were personal friends with them.

Basically I dislike Coldplay far more because they are Coldplay than I ever would if they were just Coldplay, if you know what I mean.

I take your point though, the key point about this is a lack of spirit, and that makes all these other questions a bit pointless. I do get the impression that there are lot of very well brought up young men with lovely manners on that folk-pop circuit who are in bands because they happen to be musicians, because Mummy and Daddy could afford the lessons, and not because they have a driving passion to communicate something to the world. That may be completely wrong, but it does indeed give off that impression a little.

An idle bunch of fairly talented musicians who are in bands because they happen to have the skills and happen not to urgently need a job and therefore ended up faffing about together and here we are. Some of the bunch are rather talented though, as I said, but quite a few are not.

How’s that for groundless speculation and being needlessly mean for you? If someone accused me of shooting my mouth off about things and people I know nothing about on this one, I’d have to agree with them.

The issue of shiteness is to do with the lack of passion or inventiveness not popularity or major label status. There is a ton of rubbish playing half empty toilet circuits or on independent labels. Shite is shite. The clue is in yr title matthew – blandpop.

Actually being bigger might give them a budget for a stageshow which might in turn distract me long enough from jamming knitting needles into my ears. See it’s not all bad.

I suppose that’s the trouble with democrasy; you often have to put up with everyone else’s crap!.. As the saying goes; democrasy’s a terrible idea – until you consider the alternatives.

I suppose it would be just rubbing it in if I told you I was sat here in the office listening to Meursault through my very lovely noise-cancelling Shure earphones!

I know that i am guilty of pulling the muso’s snobbish attitude when a band attracts Radio 1’s affections, and to be fair, i did like the single when i first heard it. Nothing else on the album had the same catchiness though and boredom set in before i really managed to listen to it all. Sometimes, life’s too short for perseverance.

Izzy, I think you should refer your employer to Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, which states: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’

I mean – would you pay fifty quid to go and see Rod Stewart playing an enormo-rock-gig at some huge stadium somewhere? No, of course not, sounds dreadful.

But I tell what would be a great gig: down the local boozer with a few pints, Rod Stewart sat there on a bar stool up on stage with Ronnie Wood next to him on acoustic guitar belting out the old standards.

That would be a fucking excellent night out – but it’s an irrelevent argument because it’s not going to happen, and it’s not what Rod Stewart’s about anymore. So you can’t use that as an argument to suggest Rod Stewart isn’t shite.

That’s a bit of an extreme example – Noah And The Whale aren’t as shite as Rod Stewart’s MOR / AOR crap – and they haven’t yet travelled as far away from their pub gig roots. But you get the point!