X + Y = Backlash
The backlash against
Coldplay, whose new album,
X & Y, is out Tuesday, is so predictable, we should just skip it and move on to the next phase of the band's critical life. No such luck: The backlash has officially arrived. Its equally predictable messenger is Jon Pareles of the New York Times. Pareles is perhaps the most consistently pretentious of all the Times' pop music writers, and that's saying something. Coldplay are really good and wildly popular. There's nothing bad to say about them. So naturally Pareles thinks of something.
Coldplay,
writes Pareles, is "the most insufferable band of the decade," due to their male sensitivity, "self-pity," and aspirations to musical grandeur. "Coldplay is admired by everyone," Pareles says—"everyone except me."
That would be my nomination for the most self-congratulatory sentence in the history of pop music criticism. You can almost see Pareles puffing up his chest as he boldly goes where no one has gone before. Isn't he just so...contrarian! Because the sentence ostensibly suggests that Pareles is some crank...but what Pareles really means is that his taste is better, more discerning, than everyone else's. Literally, everyone else's.
Thankfully, the New York Post's Isaac Guzman has anticipated Pareles' "look at me! look at me!" positioning. In his article "
A Hipster's Dilemma," Guzman writes,
"For folks who love to burnish lovable, mid-list losers - like Wilco, PJ Harvey and Modest Mouse - into underdog idols, [Coldplay's success] is a problem. But it shouldn't be."
"There was a time when we didn't lose our passion for bands just because they were successful" Guzman concludes. "Sinatra, Elvis, Hank Williams, The Beatles - they were all massive, but worthy of respect. And nobody would hiss if they popped up on the jukebox in your local watering hole."
Not unless they're a New York Times' music critic trying to prove how above the mainstream he is....
