banal

commonplace, stale, or unoriginal

Banal is ordinary with the life drained out: a familiar line arriving with no pulse.

The essay opened with the banal claim that technology has changed society, and the reader immediately knew nothing fresh was coming.

Banal does not mean simple. Simple can be clean, sharp, and true. Banal means the freshness is gone.

For writing, this matters. A simple sentence can help the reader. A banal sentence sounds as if it has been used a thousand times and brought nothing alive with it.