Confusion seems to reign in the press regarding the state of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's conscious uncoupling. Drawing heavily on reports from "impeccably placed sources", one magazine reports that Paltrow is inconsolable at the news that her estranged husband is apparently dating Jennifer Lawrence; another has her raising a foaming goblet of Goop gingerbread chai in Martin and Lawrence's direction and toasting their future happiness. It's almost as if the authors of the articles are just making it up as they go along. And yet, one detail in Grazia's report of the Paltrow/Martin separation grabbed LiS's attention. It was a quote from An Insider: "Gwyneth loves that Jen isn't like a lot of the mindless groupies who throw themselves at Chris."
Ah, the famous mindless Coldplay groupies: you just don't hear enough about them, do you? Young women drawn, like moths to a flame, by Coldplay's mythic reputation for excess and debauchery, their crazy quest for libertine kicks leading them backstage, into the court of the self-styled "24-7 bad boyz" of rock'n'roll. You call them mindless, but aren't they simply girls driven to hormonal distraction by the constant crotch-level bombardment of Coldplay's music: the primal, urgent sexual intensity of Fix You, the dangling invitation to amoral hedonism implicit in every filthy note of The Scientist? Not for nothing has the phrase "lock up your daughters – Coldplay are in town" become such a well-worn part of the 21st-century lexicon.
It must seem like such fun. So raw, so freeing to be in the presence of Coldplay, who care nothing for society's petty mores and conventions, musical outlaws who live their lives according to Aleister Crowley's famous dictum: "Do what thou wilt." But there's a darker side to the world of the mindless Coldplay groupie, blithely yielding her all for the chance to "walk on the wild side" for one night with The Last Gang in Town. Feelings are hurt and hearts are broken, because in the badlands where Coldplay dwell, a man's got to travel alone, with only his three buddies, an open bottle of Jack and a switchblade for company: there's no room for chicks riding pillion when you live your life halfway between the gutter and the stars like the Every Teardrop is a Waterfall hitmakers. And that's the harsh reality of the mindless Coldplay groupie: thank God their plight has been brought to light.
