Despite the successes of Live 8, Bob, Bono et al, making poverty history was always going to be a tall order - but here's a mission that might be easier to achieve. Make Coldplay History. That's the strapline of the people behind new music website Eyeballkid who, like CMU, still can't get their heads around why Coldplay are quite so damn popular.
Their mission statement runs thus: "Tired of being preached to by pop stars? Sick of rich rockers with celebrity girlfriends constantly badgering you to Make This That? Make Trade Fair. Make Poverty History. These may be noble and idealistic, causes, but at www.eyeballkid.com we prefer our politics to be practical, achievable and to come from politicians. After all that's what we pay the halfwits for. But as citizens of the world some things are in our hands. There are things we can do to help. We may not be able to cease the exploitation of a resource-rich continent without drastically altering our beloved comfortable lifestyles, but we can help in other ways. We can rid the planet of those simpering, bland, insipid oiks like Keane and Embrace who cause immense suffering and anguish to right-minded people on a daily basis."
Of course, the task of turning the mainstream off Keane et al is arguably much more ambitious than making poverty history. Hence the decision to focus all energies on Coldplay.
The Eyeballkid types continue: "Aha, I hear you say, now who's being unrealistic? How can we end the ghastly reign of those whining simpletons without resorting to exiling them en masse to the International Space Station via the frozen depths of the Siberian tundra? The answer is simple. The only way to kill a droning zombie intent on eating your soul is to go for straight for the head. The blandification of indie music began a number of years ago with one band, Coldplay, the progenitor of innumerable prosaic bands with Trouble on their minds. If you take out Coldplay, the rest of them will tumble domino-like into a black hole where no sound can ever escape, leaving potential imitators to skulk around in bedsits awaiting the arrival of a new bandwagon".
So here's what Eyeballkid recommends: "You can do this by not buying their music, never attending their live shows, sabotaging copies of Sliding Doors and Shakespeare in Love in your local DVD rental shop and sending letters of complaint to your favourite radio station. And like all successful campaigns, such as Alexander the Great's incursions in Asia or Malcolm McLaren's marketing of The Sex Pistols, this one begins with a t-shirt. So get online to www.eyeballkid.com and get your fabulous Make Coldplay History t-shirt, available in glorious white or doughty red. You can change things for the better if you just believe".
So, there you go - http://www.eyeballkid.com - I think you'll find some news and reviews of bands they do like too.