Strange as it may seem, there once was a time when I used to like Snow Patrol. However, thanks to British radio's obsessive overplaying of "Chasing Cars", I've decided that they are now part of a menace that must be stopped.
"Chasing Cars" is the national anthem of the Republic of Dreary-Pop; it's backing music for every reality TV show sob story, and songs like this inevitably turn up on those "Feelgood Album" compilations when they want something "emotional". (See also "How To Save A Life" by The Fray). Emotional my a**e. The only emotion I feel when I hear these songs is to throw the radio out of the window, only to decide that would be the waste of a good radio.
James Blunt meanwhile also had a lot to answer for: we are now being flooded with one dreary singer-songwriter after another, the latest being Newton Faulkner, who is like a stick of rock with 'dreary' written throughout. There are some good singer-songwriters out there who never get the recognition they deserve - Gavin Degraw and Ross Copperman to name two. Presumably they are not dreary enough.
