When it comes to sneering, no one sneers better – or is it worse? – than The Guardian. You know, the liberal left of centre, home for middle class luvvies and Corbynistas. Oh, and me. Find something popular among the masses and they will find ways to rubbish it, by way of inverted snobbery and disdain. It is like reading an article by Grace Blakeley or Owen Jones. We know what the lower orders need, even if we don’t need it ourselves. Today, the target of The Guardian’s sneer is Coldplay. But first, cards on the table.
Coldplay do nothing for me. They neither excite nor annoy. They are what they are, which is to say a unique sounding band who write and perform catchy songs with massive hooks that draw people in. And they appear to be thoroughly decent human beings, in a way that Oasis don’t seem to be. That combination enables me to understand why they are so enormously popular and loved in a way that most music acts aren’t. The Guardian, in the form of Ben Beaumont-Thomas (he simply had to have a double-barreled name), decides not just to deride Coldplay’s new album Moon Music: he full on takes the piss.
Beaumont-Thomas, you may not be surprised to learn, studied Modern History at Leeds University including the Russian Revolution and American black civil rights (he is white, obviously), before going on to become a Senior Communications Associate (content development) for the Global for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Global Creative Manager at Amnesty International. Naturally, this led to a career as a copyrighter and, finally, Music Editor at The Guardian. In rubbishing Moon Music, Beaumont-Thomas employs the following flowery language:
- The album then wills that world into existence, filled as it is with affirmations of humanity’s potential, celebrations of non-denominational spirituality, and an almost scrupulous avoidance of politics – an end-of-history utopia where cultural difference is championed but also homogenised into total harmony.
- Is that a valuable project in an age of violent discord? Or offensively trite bullshit?
- There’s plenty to scoff at, should you wish.
- You can imagine his partner Dakota Johnson wanting him to be a bit more certain about it all, while Gwyneth Paltrow spits out her chia porridge in indignation.
- There’s acres of pseudo-profound ambient-orchestral waffle.
- Half-ideas worked into pointless codas to make the album feel more grand.
- The dramatically dramatic strings on We Pray would be better suited to soundtracking a villainous Apprentice contestant smirking out of a departing helicopter.
- Marketing-savvy therapists will be overlaying the mixed metaphors of iAAM.
And that’s just part of a monstrous pretentious, pseudo-intellectual word salad that, you feel, the author spent many hours preparing and that later saw him in a state of wanky euphoria at what he had achieved. Some achievement. By the end of the first paragraph, you know what’s coming for the rest of the article. It’s more of the same, look-at-how-fucking-clever-I-am bollocks.
In the end, it all comes down to what you like and it’s pretty clear that the author does not much care for Coldplay and sets about justifying his dislike, by way of letting loose a blizzard of gibberish.
Personally, I have no wish to see Coldplay, nor to listen to their music. It’s not my thing. But I know what they are and that’s the biggest rock band on the planet. And, as with the likes of U2, the hate and loathing they attract is, I feel, born from envy of their great success.
Beaumont-Thomas says “there’s plenty to scoff at” and that is what he does. Doubtless, his fellow luvvies at The Guardian will be patting him on the back and congratulating him for his shining wit. I’d change some of the letters and describe him as a whining shit. Anyway, Chris Martin will be laughing all the way to the bank.
