Is The Hypocrisy Not Obvious?
June 15, 2005 – 2:02 pmAn article on CNN today reported that Coldplay’s new album “X&Y” has debuted at number one on the charts in the United States and Great Britain along with twenty other countries. Coldplay’s record label, EMI Group Plc, is obviously excited to hear this news, as the revenue helps the company overcome a weaker than expected fiscal year that ended March 31. Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, was asked to comment on this boon for EMI, and his response, according to the CNN article, was the following:
“I don’t really care about EMI,” he told Reuters at a recent appearance in Manhattan. “I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world.”
Is the hypocrisy not obvious here? If you think “shareholders are the great evil of this modern world”, why in all that is honest are you aligning yourself with a record company that is built upon the principle of protecting and advancing the interests of shareholders to promote and distribute your record? If you really think shareholders are such a “great evil”, why not produce, promote, and distribute your album yourself? Or with a privately held company? Coldplay makes a living based largely on the fact that potential shareholders are able and willing to invest in a company like EMI, yet their lead singer comes out and describes these potential shareholders as a “great evil”. What an unabashed hypocrite.
2 Responses to “Is The Hypocrisy Not Obvious?”
Yeah man, let’s stick it to the shareholders and go buy a Coldplay album.
By Kristján on Jun 15, 2005 at 11:36 pm
Okay Jeff, I’ll try posting this comment again:
Do you know the details of Coldplay’s contract with EMI? It isn’t uncommon for part of the contract to stipulate that they must first record X number of albums for the recording company before recording for another company or on their own. In fact, I’d guess that it would be uncommon to *not* have something like that in the contract. So, I propose a couple of situations:
1) Coldplay, eager to seal the deal and start making money, signed a contract that they didn’t agree with in principle, and now they have to stick to the contract before going out on their own.
2) Coldplay, being an inexperienced group, signed the contract and later developed opinions on the “evil of the shareholders”.
Either way, if they’re in a binding contract there is little that they can do about things, besides speak out. So the hipocracy may not be hipocracy at all.
Anyway, I don’t know the details, so I can’t say for sure. But you didn’t give the details in your post, and I’m currently too lazy to look at the article to see if the details are there. Do you happen to know any more about the situation?
By Adam on Jun 16, 2005 at 4:29 pm