Missed opportunities; music is full of them: Decca rejecting The Beatles, the A&R man who told Elvis to stick to truck driving and now, the rebirth of Embrace. And for that we've got Chris Martin to thank. Why? Because if, in between making trade fair, Mr. Paltrow hadn't decided to "donate" one of his cast offs (Gravity) to them, then we probably wouldn't be here.
Sadly he did and thus the song that could (should?!) have finally killed Embrace will probably do very well. The charts and festivals will again reverberate to boring, dated material sung by a person who sounds more amphibian than man. Although, to be fair, the marvel of studio magic means Danny McNamara sings better than normal here, but just wait to hear him croak it out at one of Embrace's live performances. Ho-ho, then we'll see who has the last laugh.
Looking As You Are is a lighters-in-the-air number, squarely situated in ballad country, and therefore so big, dumb and predictable it could have been scripted by Jerry Bruckheimer. To the terminally unadventurous it'll be heartfelt and moving; to me it's trite and pointless. Oh, Chris. What have you done?
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