Popjustice
  • Home
    • Briefing archive
  • Features
  • Playlists
  • Get Popjustice emails
  • About Popjustice
    • About
    • Popjustice: Est 2000
    • The Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize
  • Contact
    • General contact details
    • Submit music
  • Forum
Recent Posts
  • New Music Friday: Julia Michaels has purchased, or hired, a chainsaw
  • New Music Monday: Griff's Black Hole is super, and massive
  • New Music Friday: Let's kick off 2021 with some KLF
  • The Top 45 Singles Of 2020
  • New Music Friday: Mae Muller doesn't want to be dependent
Hello! In theory you should only be seeing this if you're using a mobile or tablet. How's the site looking? If anything's wonky click here and tell us so we can fix it. Thanks! x
Popjustice
  • Briefing
  • Features
  • Playlists
    • New Music Friday: The Popjustice Edit
    • Big Hit Energy
    • 21st Century Pop
    • 2018% Solid Pop Music
    • Full archive
  • About
    • About Popjustice
    • Contacting Popjustice
    • Send music
    • Popjustice: Est 2000
    • The Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize
  • Forum
  • The Briefing

Stop everything — Matt Cardle has some thoughts on popular song.

  • December 21, 2010
  • Popjustice

Matt Cardle has been dis­cuss­ing his Number One single 'When We Collide'.

As we know, this is a cover of Biffy Clyro's 'Many Of Horror', and sold over 400,000 copies to be 2010's Christmas Number One.

Let's examine what Matt had to say. From an interview with MTV:

"As soon as they presented me with the oppor­tun­ity to sing ['Many Of Horror'], I just snatched it. I didn't let them change their minds. I would have hated to of sang Miley Cyrus, The Climb."

Speaking of Biffy Clyro's recent comments that they felt Matt's cover was "an X Factor version" of the track, Cardle told us: "Absolutely true, that's what it is. I'm very wary of doing covers, I just hope their not hating it."

"I mean with Miley Cyrus' The Climb, you can kind of s**t on a Miley Cyrus song and not many people are going to care because fans of The Climb by Miley Cyrus are children."

"They are not going to be like 'Oh god, I can't believe they've done a cover', but when it comes to Biffy Clyro, they have a hardcore, die-hard fanbase and are a hugely credible band. You can't f*** around with one of their songs."

There are various things we would like to say to Matt about these comments. Some of these things include:

1. Matt, you may well establish yourself as a force to be reckoned with in the credible troubadour stakes but right now all you've done is win The X Factor under Dannii Minogue's guidance. Get over yourself.

2. Matt, 'The Climb' was written (by grown ups, believe it or not) about what it's like to struggle in the music industry. Not a concept with which you are well-acquain­ted but one which you may  start to recognise in the coming years, so perhaps reserve judgement until then.

3. Perhaps, Matt, you could put to one side the fact that you've allowed yourself to be swayed by the words 'Miley' and 'Cyrus', and explain what exactly it is about the lyrics to 'The Climb' that you consider to be so facile? And, while you're at it, what is it about the melody to 'Many Of Horror' that makes your 'cool' ballad somehow better than the one you've chosen to dismiss as a nursery rhyme?

3. Matt, do you in some way think that the 'children' who like 'The Climb' are in any way less dis­cern­ing than the cock-crazy V Festival-attending twenty-to-thirtyso­mething women who formed a large pro­por­tion of those who voted for you to win The X Factor? Do you find that descrip­tion of your fanbase crass and con­des­cend­ing, and if so why do you feel that you should be allowed to be dis­missive and snotty about music that other people enjoy? Do you feel that you have 'indie on your side'? Good luck with that one, Matt.

4. Matt, do you under­stand that people buying your song as a trinket asso­ci­ated with their 2010 X Factor exper­i­ence is no different to 'children' buying a Miley Cyrus tune they enjoyed in the Hannah Montana movie?

5. You do under­stand, don't you, Matt, that to 90% of the people buying your oh-so-cool Biffy cover this is not some victory for authentic music (how could it be? You've been told by Syco to cover someone else's song)? You do know that ulti­mately this is just a nice-sounding version of a nice-sounding song, right? Because,  Matt, do you realise that 'Many Of Horror' was already a song that many Serious 'N' Snooty rockists — people who share your snotty attitude towards pop music — felt was little better than a Westlife ballad?

We could go on but we're late for lunch.

  • dannii minogue
  • hannah montana
  • Matt Cardle
  • miley cyrus
  • The X Factor
  • westlife
Previous Article
  • The Briefing

Ilia Darlin: free download, reasons for amazingness, links etc etc etc

  • December 21, 2010
  • Popjustice
Have a read
Next Article
  • Songs

Martin Solveig & Dragonette — 'Hello'

  • December 22, 2010
  • Popjustice
Have a read
Pop as in popular
  • 1
    New Music Friday: Julia Michaels has purchased, or hired, a chainsaw
Further listening
Greatest hits
  • Giorgio Moroder interview: "I hated the moustache"
  • Alison Goldfrapp interview: "I feel good about this"
  • The full-length actual Mutya Keisha Siobhan interview
Further reading
  • 1
    New Music Friday: Julia Michaels has purchased, or hired, a chainsaw
  • 2
    New Music Monday: Griff's Black Hole is super, and massive
  • 3
    New Music Friday: Let's kick off 2021 with some KLF
  • 4
    The Top 45 Singles Of 2020
  • 5
    New Music Friday: Mae Muller doesn't want to be dependent
  • 6
    New Music Friday: There's a big one from Royal & The Serpent
Est 2000. Still going.
Socials

 Spotify
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Instagram
 Soundcloud

'Quick links'

About Popjustice
Contact Popjustice
Sign up for the news­let­ter
Submit music
Est 2000
Twenty Quid Music Prize

Playlists

21st Century Pop
New Music Friday: The Popjustice Edit
2018% Solid Pop Music
The Sound Of Popjustice
Playlist archive

© 2020 Popjustice Ltd. Scrolled to the bottom now you're here
  • Privacy, Ts & Cs, cookies etc
  • Corrections

Input your search keywords and press Enter.