The Wombats – ‘Moving to New York’: let’s hope they stay there
It would be futile to ask how the hell this band became so frustratingly popular. Their tunes are unfortunately but undeniably catchy and on numerous occasions I’ve found myself singing along or humming them out of nowhere. So why is it that when I actually hear their songs I can’t help but cringe? Musically they consist of unimaginative noughties indie rock but I can’t single them out for that. No, what really irks me about The Wombats are their lyrics. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a self-conscious bunch of simpletons so desperate to label themselves. “Look at us, look at us, we’re in a band!” they scream. ‘Look at us, look at us, we are “INDIE”!’ I know you feel chuffed with yourselves for discovering Converse trainers, stripy jumpers from Topman and Ian Curtis, but everyone you’re singing to got there first.
Without even the slightest hint of subtlety, wit or imagination The Wombats feel the need to point out that is ironic to dance happily to a song entitled ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ as if they’ve made some grand breakthrough in literary and social scholarship. If a singer has to tell you that ‘this is the darkest song [he] ever wrote,’ it’s probably not all that dark. Even the album title, The Wombats Present: A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation, just smacks of a desire to be seen as tortured souls whose poetic spirits have been crushed by heartbreak and the Blakean harshness of modern life. Congratulations, your girlfriend dumped you; you’re officially a man. It doesn’t mean you have to spend almost an hour whining about it, does it?
When I downloaded the album part of me wished I had actually bought the CD just so I could throw it out the window, hopefully hitting some skinny-jeaned scenester in the process. Bands like this are the reason illegal downloading should be preserved: so that future generations can be saved the humiliation of realising they shelled out hard-earned cash for fifty-one minutes of banal, self-indulgent tripe.
Posted by dontsmokeinbed 