Boring Pauls

In my ongoing quest to uncover the musical Pauls (see my Awful Pauls and my Gorgeous Pauls), you don't have to scrape off too much froth to discover a steaming pile of terminal dullness. Here are the boring Pauls.

Paul Stanley

Stanley Eisen was so dull, he changed his name to Paul. He then joined Kiss. If you're not sure which one he was, he had a single black star over his eye which made him look like glam-era Elton John after a hefty punch in the face. Stanley was never rock and roll, despite the Kiss persona. He hardly ever missed a show, he's had a hip replacement or two, he talked more than he played on stage, and he perfomed a duet with Sarah Brightman of all people. Crazy, crazy nights, huh?

Paul Weller

Don't get me started on the Pantene-haired Britpop-leeching plodfather of mod, Paul Weller. How he can bottle something like the Jam and let it turn into runny, tasteless like the snoozesome Wild Wood MOR dross, I'll never know. I blame Weller entirely for Ocean Colour Scene and The Enemy, two bands that cancel out anything good he ever recorded. If he was a colour, he'd be brown. And not even a good brown.

Paul Anka

You may not have noticed, but Anka's back in fashion after jumping on the Glee and American Idol bandwagons. This is very bad news indeed. He represents everything I hate about the 1950s: slick hair, white teeth, Elvis warbling and uncontrolled use of rhyming couplets (Diana alone has rhymes as tedious as 'me / see', 'say / play' and 'lover / other'). For a man called Paul Anka, rhyming couplets is a dangerous game. Except it's not dangerous: it's just dull.

Peter Paul and Mary

This trio was drippier than a leaking tap on a drizzly Sunday. They gave rise, unashamedly, to the dubious notion that the 1960s were all about smoking pot and picking flowers. In fact, the Magic Dragon they sang about really was a crappy children's song about a dragon, while Leaving On A Jet Plane led to New Order being sued in a nasty bit of solicitor spitefulness. Drip, drip, drip, the 60s are dead and so is your childhood, get over it.

Paul Hewson

Paul Hewson, otherwise known as Bono Out Of U2, is a Pope-badgering, vocal-straining, swollen-eyed, God-complexing, post-unmodern, microphone-chewing, charity-mugging, tax-dodging philanthropist with a neat line in mid-life crisis trousers and an ability to keep shouting "EDGE!" in live shows like he's got some kind of Pizza Hut tourettes whilst simultaneously making every song sound like it was recorded for an advert for life insurance for the over 70s. He is now possibly the most boring musician on earth, and James Blunt isn't dead yet, so that's saying something.

More Pauls

Surely some Pauls are redeemable? This can't be all the Pauls? What about the good Pauls? Can you have a good Paul? Jump to the Gorgeous Pauls, or click here for some Awful Pauls.