DUEL 2002! Round 2 Match 1
Welcome to the second round of Duel! 2002, the ongoing search for the worst band in the world at the present time. The second round differs from the first in one important way — from now on we’ll be giving bands extra votes based on your comments (on the Duel!) message board. Each comment against a band can give that band up to two extra votes, based on how convincing it is and how much it makes me laugh (these are the same thing pretty much). Without further ado, then:
Round 2 sees the highest-placed British seed, Starsailor, return to Duel! after a first-round victory over Baxendale. My first encounter with Starsailor was when their hotly-tipped debut single ‘Fever’ CRASHED into the charts. Hey wow I thought, it’s a sizzling new British band, this has got to be good! Well, maybe I was a bit less enthusiastic but I was still unprepared for what I heard – ‘[strum strum] There’s a feev-ah [strum twang] on thuh freeeee-way [tzoink]’. Surely I thought they are TAKING THE PISS, you don’t have freeways in Guildford* my lad. How come at a time when the biggest comedy character in the country is based around the idea that pretending to be American in Staines is laughable, Starsailor get a free pass for imitating Jim Morrison?
Starsailor go up against art-rockers Muse, who had a tough first-round tussle with scary scary Slipknot. ‘Art’ in ‘art-rockers’ here doesn’t mean human creativity striving towards hidden and profound insights, by the way, it means ‘funny chords’ and ‘hair dye’. A great philosopher once said that rock is music about being 16 — as someone fortunate enough to edit a creative writing section at that age I can assure you that Muse have the job bang to rights. They may be the underdogs in this Duel! but an upset cannot be ruled out.
*or wherever this wretched shower come from.