Hi, I’m Meathead. Have you checked out the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine? Why? Well, anyway, you probably noticed Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow posing on the cover this month, trying really hard to look like a genius. Seriously, look at him. Hate to break it to you, Chris, but wearing a stupid-looking jacket that you got from Michael Jackson’s yard sale and looking thoughtfully into the distance doesn’t change the fact that you’re the singer for fucking Coldplay. Quit kidding yourself.
Don’t tell that to Rolling Stone, though. Interviewer Brian Hiatt keeps his lips firmly attached to Chris Martin’s genitals for so long that you’d think they were conjoined twins. The cover alone is bad enough: Before I edited it using the magic of Adobe™ Photoshop®, it seriously read “Coldplay’s Chris Martin: Confessions of an Anxious Rock God.” What? Christ Almighty, just how far down has the bar been lowered that motherfucking Chris Martin, whose music can frequently be heard playing over the speakers at Bed Bath & Beyond, is considered a rock god? Correct me if I’m wrong, but in order to even qualify as a rock god, don’t you have to actually rock first? I’m pretty sure Kenny Loggins is further up the list than Chris Martin. I can’t say with any real authority how many times the devil horns have been thrown at a Coldplay concert, but I’m going to make an educated guess here and put it at around zero.
No, but Rolling Stone says he’s a rock god, so that’s what counts. They’re always right. Well, I mean, there was that time Rolling Stone called Robert Plant “as foppish as Rod Stewart, but nowhere near so exciting,” but that was a long time ago. This time, they’re obviously right on the money. Seriously, look at that jacket!
I remember back when “Yellow” was a big hit for some reason, and Coldplay was essentially the Dollar Store Radiohead. If you sucked everything that was remotely unique or sonically interesting out of Radiohead (sorry for that inadvertently unpleasant mental image), the dry, withered husk that’s left would have strongly resembled Coldplay. It’s bland, middle-of-the-road non-rock for 39-year-olds to listen to while driving to work in their Audis, right before they hit their mid-life crisis and relapse into Van Halen and Quiet Riot. Granted, Coldplay does seem oddly fitting as background music for when I’m shopping for a new toaster. I’ll give them that much. Here’s the unfortunate video for “Yellow”. The first person who can point out anything that rocks about it wins a free dinner for two at Long John Silver’s, courtesy of Aaron North.
I figured the “Yellow” hype would die down soon enough, and they’d be relegated to appearing on “Buzz Ballads Vol. 58″ when it’s released on February 21, 2012. Maybe they’d be like Primitive Radio Gods, who had that one song back in the 90’s that was popular for about 45 seconds and then they got dropped by their label and had to get jobs at Coldstone Creamery, and now whenever you ask anyone about them, you’re given a look of confusion and mild annoyance in return. I wish, more than anything, that I could get the same reaction when I mention Coldplay to random strangers on the street. I guess there’s still a chance that will happen in my lifetime, but it’s not going to be this month, unfortunately. Thanks, Rolling Stone!
No, instead of drifting into the mists of obscurity as they should, Coldplay decided to put out some more stupid albums, and go on Jay Leno and do whatever other exceedingly lame things people like Chris Martin do to pay their mortgages. We got to watch in horror as Coldplay evolved from Dollar Store Radiohead into Dollar Store U2. Now we get the same blander-than-bland songs about nothing in particular, but we get some bullshit Jesus posturing as a fun bonus! Check out their brand new video for “Violet Hill”!
Wow, what a use of three minutes and 41 seconds! Now that the utter worthlessness of Coldplay has been established, let’s take a look at this interview. The title is “The Jesus of Uncool”. So that’s the second time in this issue that Chris Martin has been compared to the savior of mankind. Gee, Brian, could you maybe try to be just a little less objective in your journalism? I mean, why even bother interviewing him? Why not just write up a four-page dissertation on how delicious Chris Martin’s ass tastes?
Rolling Stone: X&Y got some mixed reviews, but the harshest was from the New York Times, which called Coldplay the most insufferable band of the decade. How did you handle that?
Chris Martin: It was a big deal. It’s the first real attack on your band, and from a publication we all respect. I agreed with a lot of the points. It was like, “Yeah, I do sometimes go for the obvious, and I do sometimes fall back on old tricks.” So, in a way, it was liberating to see that someone else realized that also. And there is something glamorous to me in taking a bit of a beating and keeping on going. When you do something that some people don’t like quite so much, then you are free again. Your whole canvas is open. You don’t have to fall back on piano, we don’t have to fall back on falsetto, you don’t have to fall back on every song being a yearning love song.
“Those jerks at the New York Times were totally mean to you, Chris! How did you get through that awfully dark time?” Chris Martin tries to act like it was a learning experience, but it’s clear he didn’t learn anything at all from it. If he had, he’d be working at Coldstone Creamery along with the Primitive Radio Gods. I mean, when he’s not impregnating his wife and naming his children after fruit.
The last half of the interview involves Chris expressing his immeasurably invaluable opinions on American politics. As if we need yet another reason to dislike Bill “We’ll Do It Live” O’Reilly, now we know he’s responsible for providing “inspiration” for the aforementioned “Violet Hill” and its Jesus-posturing. And it sure is a relief to know Chris is rooting for Obama. Barry’s definitely going to win now that he has the highly coveted Coldplay endorsement! I mean, we might as well just skip the election altogether at this point.
I don’t know, maybe I’m being too hard on the guy. I mean, he might be a nice guy in person, and he might be fun to play Mortal Kombat II with after a few shots of Jäger. Maybe. But can you blame me for being just slightly irritated when Rolling Stone, which would have us believe it is the be-all-end-all of music magazines, compares the man responsible for some of the most painfully uninteresting music of the 21st century to Jesus Christ? I mean, I’m not exactly a card-carrying member of the Christ Club, but I’d like to think that if Jesus were alive today, and in a band, he wouldn’t be putting out shit like Parachutes. Just a thought.
In closing, I’d like to offer this word of advice to Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone: From now on, please keep your Chris Martin-cornholing fantasies to yourself. He’s not God; he’s not Jesus; hell, he’s not even Jeff Tweedy. He doesn’t deserve to be on the cover of anything, even your magazine. I know it’s getting harder and harder to find musicians with talent to write about, but there are still some out there. Please try harder. Thanks!
Love,
Meathead
http://www.buddyhead.com/2008/06/15/why-does-god-continue-to-allow-coldplay-or-rolling-stone-to-exist/