I've noticed this slightly irritating trend lately whereby otherwise intelligent people who like a band or artist, but are aware that many of their peers do not, preface their praise of the artist in question by saying something like "I know it's not very cool to like Travis, but..." - thus effectively short-circuiting any subsequent debate by painting the naysayers as fickle fashion victims.

It seems necessary, surprisingly, to point out that most of the people who take exception to Travis do so because they think that their music, from the second album onwards in particular, is just not very good. In fact they think it is quite bad. In terms of lyrical content, sometimes very bad. As this story illustrates (link via No Rock'N'Roll Fun).

""Don't rehearse, this is the last verse/ In the hearse, going through your purse": Jesus , Mary and Joseph. I bet the Pope is shitting himself.

(Well, actually, he probably is... but, 'y'know... not for fear of Fran Healy's incisive social commentary.)