My Greatest Virtue Is That I'm So Humble

The New York Times continues it's critical bitchslapping of Coldplay singer Chris Martin.

Actually, reviewer Kelefa Sanneh says Coldplay's New York concert rocked pretty hard. But he, uh, she, uh, Sanneh has a bit of fun when Martin opened his mouth to do something other than sing or gulp oxygen.

He boldly -- although not, perhaps, prudently -- continued, "If we looked like Mariah Carey, we'd sell 25 times as many records, which would be a lot." And the crowd was left to puzzle out the details on its own. (Would that mean all four members had to look the same? Or would one become the kinky-haired singer from the "Vision of Love" video, while another wore the cool airbrushed tank-top from the cover of the "Rainbow" album?)

Mr. Martin noted, too, that if the band resembled Ms. Carey, “We could date people who looked like Tom Cruise.” As everyone in the arena surely knew, he is married to Gwyneth Paltrow, and it wasn't quite clear if he considered the hypothetical trade-off a step up or a step down.

Saffeh tries to commend Martin for at least sticking to his guns on his one main social issue -- "fair trade". But Saffeh just can't quite stifle a snorfle at his clueless sincerity:

But it's easy to forget all that when he makes one of his ill-considered speeches. Before the hit "Scientist," he intoned, "We’ll play this for everyone on the Gulf Coast." How did he know? It turns out that's just what they need.

Man, can anyone seriously doubt that Jack White is like 10 times cooler than this guy?