Chris Martin
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=380865
Chris Martin: The stereo MC
That's MC as in Middle Class, you understand. The lead singer of Britpop's most
lauded band, Coldplay, went to school at Sherborne. Worse, he doesn't drink,
smoke and hasn't dated an All Saint. In snob-rock terms, he shouldn't have a
prayer, let alone a tabloid headline. So how's he pulled it off? Over to you,
Gwyneth...
23 February 2003
Chris Martin doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke or take drugs. He was still a
virgin at 22 and cut short a tour to sit his finals. Not very rock'n'roll is
it? Even people who could hum his songs would have been hard-pressed to pick
out the lead singer of the band Coldplay in a crowd – until recently. His only
distinguishing feature was the facial expression of a little boy lost. So who
was that sunny, confident front man who went up on stage to collect the first
of two Brit awards on Thursday night and cheerfully challenged everybody in the
room to a fight? OK, so it was a copy of a stunt the genuinely wild Robbie
Williams pulled a couple of years ago, but totally out of previous character
nonetheless.
The Brits is the kind of tawdry, self-congratulatory event this once wilfully
unglamorous singer would have shunned in the past. His fellow nominees, Badly
Drawn Boy and The Streets, both elected not to attend, although that could have
been more to do with the ban on alcohol. But life has changed dramatically for
Martin in the past two years. Coldplay are now one of the biggest bands in
Britain – their debut LP Parachutes, released in 2000, sold eight million
copies while their new album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, went in at number
one, and is well on its way to reaching the six million mark.
His new starry demeanour is not all down to winning the Best Album and Best
Group Brits, however, as anyone who has read a tabloid newspaper in the past
six months will have guessed. Hollywood stars such as Jack Nicholson and Minnie
Driver don't turn up to Coldplay gigs just because the band have recently
become huge in America. They go because their chum Gwyneth Paltrow – yes,
preposterously glamorous Oscar-winning Gwynnie – is currently dating Martin,
propelling one of rock's most unlikely icons into a paparazzi-pursued world
he could only have had nightmares about in the past.
They met at a party in New York last autumn and the rumours started immediately.
That was Martin's fault: when Gwyneth came to watch the band at the Bowery
Ballroom he dedicated the song "In My Place" to her, singing: "I was scared,
I was scared, tired and underprepared, but I wait for you."
To be fair, no one seems more surprised at the relationship than Martin himself.
"She's a big Hollywood star and I'm just the bloke from Coldplay," he gasped.
Pop's principal odd couple have attracted an enormous amount of media attention,
including repeated rumours of a split, with Paltrow's catty Hollywood pals
whispering that Martin is simply a stop-gap to help the actress get over the
death of her father. Last week Martin cheekily told reporters at the NME music
awards that he'd never even met Paltrow. Yet the actress, who lambasted the
clumsy seduction tactics of Englishmen immediately before their relationship
became public, spent Christmas with his parents in Devon and was spotted moving
cardboard boxes into his flat in Primrose Hill.
In some ways they are well matched. Paltrow, zealous about healthy living, is
said to be a homely girl who likes nothing more than a romantic night in. If
that's true, then her new beau fits the bill. Martin's never been photographed
falling out of the Groucho and has never dated an All Saint. It's not long
since The Sun carried a story highlighting how often the singer had been seen
out wearing the same moth-eaten coat (four times in a week); there was less
tabloid enthusiasm for publicising his work with Oxfam, or the trip he made to
Haiti on behalf of the Fair Trade campaign. Never mind that he doesn't like to
drink, this is a man who once apologised to his devout father for taking God's
name in vain on stage.
Martin's ascendance may not qualify as particularly rapid in these days when
chart-topping pop bands are created overnight, but it was fast enough to prompt
a severe bout of paranoia. Following the release of Parachutes the singer
refused to do interviews for 18 months, resolving to stay at home and
concentrate on his songs. Looking back, you can hardly blame him. As Coldplay
albums flew off the shelves the media were laying into them with the kind of
ferocity usually reserved for ex-Spice Girls. Alan McGee, the man who
discovered Oasis, raged against a group of "bedwetters".
Matters weren't improved by Martin's apologetic demeanour. "Oh, I never meant
to cause you trouble," he whimpered on the song that was played on the radio
day and night. Pull yourself together, man, you wanted to scream. Instead of
The Beatles and the Stones we now have Manic Street Preachers, Travis and
Stereophonics: all-male, middle-of-the-road rockers with no wit. Coldplay were
written off as whiny, middle-class pretenders whose privileged backgrounds gave
them nothing to complain about.
The son of a teacher mother and an accountant father, Martin grew up near
Exeter alongside four siblings. He attended Sherborne, the Dorset public school,
where he listened to U2 and dreamed of becoming the next Bono. He went on to
read ancient world studies at University College London and met his fellow band
mates – guitarist Jon Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion.
Martin still seems bothered by his background. Referring to himself as "a
self-obsessed, uncool fool", he lamented, "I've got no story. We're just a
bunch of students. I can't be compared with Liam Gallagher or The Sex Pistols,
or anyone real."
Yet his plaintive moan has struck a chord with the masses – so much so that
Martin was approached to write the theme tune for the Hugh Grant romantic
comedy, Love Actually. He turned it down for fear of becoming "the next Ronan
Keating". To his fans, Martin and his band delineate the triumph of the
underdog. Nice boys aren't supposed to end up on top. At this year's
Glastonbury Festival Coldplay will be sharing the bill with REM, the most
worshipped band of the past decade. That may be only fair: Mendip District
Council was on the verge of refusing the event a licence until its mood was
swayed by a passionate letter from Martin, urging councillors to let "the best
music festival in the world" go ahead.
Martin has also shown a rare devotion to his fans. When the band's concert in
Atlanta was rained off, Coldplay trooped into the car park and performed an
impromptu acoustic set for the few hundred fans who had begun queuing.
The band is so big now that Coldplay don't have to pretend to be cool. Their
fans may be grown-ups who wish they were still students, but there are lots of
them. Reviewers heaped praise upon their second album, commending soulful
melodies and insightful, poetic lyrics. But they still have critics: last week
a member of Massive Attack railed against bands unwilling to voice their
opposition to war with Iraq lest it damage their American sales, and
highlighted Coldplay as an example. A day later Martin came over all serious
at the Brits, saying "awards are essentially nonsense and we're all going to
die when George Bush has his way". It was undoubtedly sincere, but it was also
PR that his girlfriend would have been proud of. The shy, gawky, quiet man of
rock had discovered the confidence and timing to speak out in a way that he
might not have dared to do before Gwyneth.
~真是一篇頗長的文章~
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