[Article] La Vida No Loca

An interesting article (and a rare Coldplay caracature) written by the New Yorker:

In a 2005 piece in the Times, Jon Pareles called the British rock group Coldplay “the most insufferable band of the decade,” and he placed the blame on the band’s front man and singer, Chris Martin, whom he called a “passive-aggressive blowhard.”

Earlier this year, in a study sponsored by the hotel chain Travelodge of the bedtime habits of 2,248 people in the U.K., Coldplay topped a poll of music choices that would help people fall asleep. Coldplay apparently relieves what Travelodge called the “pressures of modern living.” Martin may use the same metric to judge his band’s music. On coldplay.com, you can find a handwritten note, dated “Thursday 12 June London,” that addresses the recent release of the band’s fourth studio album, “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.” “I feel very relieved that the album is finally released out into the big wide world today,” it says. “I hope there’s songs on there that will make a shit day slightly less shit, or a good day even better.”

The album sold more than seven hundred thousand copies in the first week of its release in the United States. (Since the group’s début album, “Parachutes,” was released, in 2000, news items about the troubled entertainment conglomerate EMI routinely correlate the health of the corporation with the health of Coldplay.)

Read the full article here

Chris Martin has transformed English diffidence into a masochistic religion