Why is Coldplay still depressed?

There are 20 million reasons why a band sells 20 million records, but in the case of England’s Coldplay, three stand out: They sound a bit like Radiohead, only you don’t have to think as much; their lead singer, Chris Martin, is an exceedingly handsome and righteous man; and their huge, powerful songs walk that tricky divide between the private and the public. But it will not have happened without the tender protestations of Martin, who, when asked last month about his label’s sagging profits, impatiently declared shareholders to be “the great evil of this modern world.” It was a heroic, swashbuckling, and slightly hypocritical move from the man who has become known for his fondness for political causes: Buy our record, but hate the corporate machinery that it implies. The album featured three catchy singles—“The Scientist,” ” Clocks,” and “ In My Place “—that instantly colonized your mind; there were enough smooth edges and open spaces to confirm Coldplay’s quantum leap from young, moody rockers to mature, moody rock stars. Most of the album treads in the lost-in-love territory of trite tunes like “Fix You” or “The Hardest Part.” ” What If ” borrows a device from the pop philosophizing of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” only it descends from depressing questions of space and time and Manichean divides to the more pressing issue: “What if you should decide/ That you don’t want me there by your side?” There is nothing wrong with performing emotion in song—this is what pop music does.