Nearly ten years ago, one man was propelled to stardom by a song so unremarkably bittersweet, so endearingly insipid, so remorselessly plodding, that we could hardly get through our little lives without it.
He wore a beanie. He looked a bit like Chris Martin. There was a sadness in his eyes, as in those of a dog who suspects this trip to the vet is his last. ‘Bad Day’ was the most played song in the UK between 2003 and 2008, briefly turning Daniel Powter into a superstar.
The difficult second album, the cocaine addiction and the stint in rehab later, and Dan’s still persevering on his slow climb back to the heights of (bad) days gone by.
He’s making a new album, and, judging by his verbose social media presence, it’ll be as miserable as ever. He misquotes Nietzsche; he posts photographs of himself looking contemplative. One is captioned “looking out a window toward presumably nothing”. This is a man who can only presume what it is he’s actually looking at.
Either he’s too bogged down in his epistemological philosophy, or he’s just got a bit lost. Dan’s next step, whatever it is, is well worth keeping an eye on.
