The Hours – ‘Back When You Were Good’ (Polydor) Released 15/01/07

When did all these band peddling puffed up MOR happen?  When did whether a song makes people want to wave their lighter in the air become the acid test for aspiring songwriters?  Whoever is to blame (and personally we would draw a line of shame that would encompass Coldplay, Travis, ****ing Embrace and probably zero in on Oasis circa 1995) the curse of overblown grandiosity is a blight that abounds and it has clearly infected The Hours.  With its big drums, piled-on strings and sententious repeated piano riff, 'Back When You Were Good' aims to construct the Phil Spector wall of sound, but with no foundation in a decent song ends up more as discontinued MFI wardrobe.  The problem is compounded by the everything and nothing lyrics, which are straight out of the songwriter’s book of rhyming clichés.  Singer Antony Genn takes an unidentified ‘you’ to task, who is ‘at his door’, but that (what?) ‘won’t work no more’ and anyway Genn has ‘heard it all before’.  What are you on about man?  Is this a song about unreliable doorbell repair men? Christ.