From the “biting the hand that feeds you” department:
Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin today launched an attack on his record label EMI and the company’s shareholders.
It came after EMI, the world’s third-largest music company, warned that profits would be lower because the band took longer than expected to finish their first studio album in three years.
But as Coldplay prepared for a concert in New York to promote their new album, called X&Y, Martin said: “I don’t really care about EMI. I’m not really concerned about that.
“I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world.”
Celebrities have been know to utter things that could charitably be called unintelligent, but this may take the cake. It’s of particular interest in this instance to see that Martin has moved beyond the standard attack on the “evil corporation,” and has instead decided to level an attack on those individuals who would invest in a company’s stock.
Martin told reporters at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre that the band was uncomfortable that they sell so many albums they can affect a major corporation’s stock price.
“It’s very strange for us that we spent 18 months in the studio just trying to make songs that make us feel a certain way and then suddenly become part of this corporate machine,” Martin said backstage.
He criticised what he called “the slavery that we are all under to shareholders”. However, having sold 20 million albums worldwide to date, their album release on 7 June and subsequent two-month tour of America in August and September will play a large role in determining EMI’s profits
Poor Chris. It’s pretty clear that he and his bandmates have been taken advantage of by a corporation that has provided them with nothing in return (excepting, of course, international fame, unimaginable wealth, and of course the mechanism to allow millions of people to become fans of their music – but who’s keeping track, anyway?). And it certainly is a burden akin to slavery to be asked to be responsible in your use of other people’s money.
I will admit that I feel a twinge of guilt over the fact that I have pre-ordered the new Coldplay album from the iTunes Music Store, and as a result have padded the wallets of the evil shareholders of Apple Computer. No doubt it was those shareholders and not the members of the band who decided to add a premium of two bonus songs with every pre-order in order to trick people like me into supporting their evil ways. But the root of the matter is this: by purchasing Coldplay’s new album, I have put money in the pockets of corporations and their shareholders, and am thus guilty of supporting “the great evil of this modern world.” Rest assurred: if I can find a way to extricate myself from this awful situation by returning the album, I will do so. And I would suggest to those of you who have yet to purchase Coldplay’s new album: Resist! To do so would be to support evil.
