...or an acoustic, a slide, a dobro, a pedal steel or a twelve string. It really *is* just a way to express yourself through the power of moving air. Obviously, this isn't going to be to everyone's tastes, but, once you've cut the some slack, yes (IMHO), Kelly Jones and chums really should just stop wasting our time. I've got a "rock n'aroma" Telecaster-shaped air freshener that has given me more pleasure than anything I've heard off've the most recent Stereophonics album. Given the airtime this old pile of poop has received, I'd really like directions to where the bodies are buried so's that I can also hold the producers of 'Later' to ransom.

..I thought the early stuff was kinda tidy .

Songs like Local Boy In The Photograph and Bartender And The Thief were great examples of literate unpretentious British blue collar rock by a powerful live 3 piece combo.

Why they became so rubbish and Dadrock so soon afterwards is anyone's guess - especially the once hip and aloof Kelly Jones morphing into an awful humourless oversensitive Bonnie Tyler soundalikely/leather jacket-wearing grump.

.

Incredibly unsexy, flat and humdrum about them. They are sort of 'default setting' music for people with no imagination. Want some "indie" guitar music but find the Manics a bit too unsettling or Radiohead a bit too odd? Here you go...file next to The Snow Patrol and Have a nice dayyyyyy.....ugh.

I used to have one of their calculators.

the latest single but have never bought one of their albums and do see them as a watered down version of the manics

...they were pretty entertaining on the National Lottery draw last night.

They were on to promote their new single, which they mimed through (I assume; I was sorting laundry and so not properly concentrating). Kelly Jones and one of the others then joined Myleene Klass (who I can't stand) to start the draw.

There was obviously meant to be the usual banal chit-chat, which Myleene tried to start with something along the lines of "So, new album out soon, what can we expect?" Obviously a stupid question, so Jones mumbled something before adding "and sexual explosions".

Myleene looked very uncomfortable, while Jones and the other one just stood there and smirked. The draw followed (I won nothing) and afterwards, Myleene apologised to "anyone who may have been offended by certain comments on tonight's show". Brilliant stuff - much continued smirking from the two Welsh 'musicians'.

As I say, terrible band, but it was good to see someone who clearly couldn't give a stuff about going on the lottery show (and was presumably there under label pressure) flummox an annoyance like Myleene, as well as 'offend' people watching television at 10.45pm with the word "sexual".

although I seem to remember they came out of that late 90s New Wave Of British 'Proper' Rock Music movement (NWOBPRM?) that included Little Angels, Gun, Quireboys and Thunder.

They're not that bad are they? Up until the "Language Sex Violence Other" album, they had good songs, after that it got a bit mediocre, but that's not to say they can't improve again. I haven't heard anything off the new album yet, but even "Pull The Pin" had a couple of good tracks on it (literally a couple though - "It Means Nothing" and "My Friends").

And once again that old adage of, if you don't like them, you don't have to listen to them. Simple.

There said it. don't hit me sir.

That said there is something about Ocean Colour Scene about them nowadays.

We should like them. They play proper instruments, they play them well, they're dead serious and all that, they aren't too derivative..

They're just shite, though.

Same as Travis. Nice lads and that, jangly guitars, but..

I had been totally immersed in editing some audio and totally detached from everything that was going on around me for about four hours. Then I came to, abruptly.
It was like I had fallen asleep in a party and wakened up with no knowledge that it had finished and had absolutely no frame of reference to why I was left, alone, with the Sterryhoffonics (thanks Len & Mark and Lard) on the telly.
I foolishly posted while, well, kind of bewildered.
They just seemed so humourless and earnest and (appropriately as the C4 puff was in monotone) gray. Personality-less.
I just couldn't get my head around how they had sold so many records since the high point of their first record.
I still don't. They don't vex me in the way that, say, Robbie Williams does. I hate posts on stuff we dislike, I prefer genuine enthusiasm, but their success genuinely foxes me.
Just like that of bands like Travis, Texas et al who had one genuinely good first album but continued to greater success with lesser work.

Sorry, I really have spent far too long today pondering the Stereophonics Paradox.
I have taken on board everything said today and now reappraised my love of their first album.
I love it so much that I probably haven't played it since 1999 and apart from 'Local Boy...' it wasn't very good - including that pseudo philosophical nonsense about trees and matchsticks.
Thanks for the therapy people.
NB: Shocking name too. Haven't even felt the need to wiki the rationale, it's cack.

instead of moaning about a band you all hate on-line like a bunch of anti social children, get up and actually do something with your life! I actually took 6 minute of MY life to register on this site to tell you the profuse dislike for the stereophonics is pointless, I am actually a fan and I do not see why if you do not like them that you do not listen to them. Dont even try that makes no sense to then say they are still shit. There are many bands that were dreadful but I bet most of you like them, Bay city rollers, dire straits, kiss, nick cave and the bad seeds, simply red, the eagles, jethro tull, fleetwood mac, aerosmith etc. I dont go about all day trying to listen to their music and wonder why they are successful, I really do have better things to do. The Stereophonics have made a lot of money doing what they love and expressing themselves, get up off your own arse and do something instead of wasting your time instead of mocking them on-line. You are all entitled to your opinion, just do something more productive. I look forward to a response :) actually I wont be back on this site again as I am pretty busy, feel free to attack seeing as you know I wont know about it

Good job you've got better things to do Michael. We all have. I'm in the middle of setting up my third business, rescuing one that's in trouble, launching a charity, sorting my studio out, getting a troublesome Telecaster fixed and making sure the tooth fairy appears tonight as my daughter's first tooth just came out.

And do you know what? I still find time to come on here and talk bollocks. And enjoy reading it too. Letting off steam and being distracted is a major reason I like the site and magazine. So if you'd really like to take yourself seriously in a grammar-free didactic way (Jethro Tull and Nick Cave are just objectively shit are they?) then why not start The Face up again and leave us farties to our corner of the bar.

Cheers