Substance over style

After reading Robert Hilburn’s article on Coldplay (“Sincerely Yours,” June 29), I would like to sincerely express my gratitude to you for pointing the spotlight on the most pressing existential issue facing pop music today -- the absence of real, unpackaged honesty and feeling. It is Coldplay’s unabashed sincerity that makes it worth following, worth listening to. The band has something to say and it really means it.

I grew up watching edgy, alternative rock videos on MTV (yes, it was truly Music TeleVision at one time, but that was before Carson Daly and Britney Spears moved into the beach house) but find myself appalled at the current state of music on popular radio and television. Most of today’s hit-makers don’t write their own music and wouldn’t sound sincere even if they did. They appeal to the younger crowd of teens, tweens and preteens who live in, and feed on, a revolving world of the fake, where the next best thing never quite delivers on its promise of real, substantive satisfaction.

Instead of promoting Coldplay, MTV is busy selling fake feelings and emotions (and seats on “TRL”). Worse yet, it appears, to my great chagrin, that even the singer-songwriter -- long the bastion for honest, thoughtful expression of self -- can be faked, copied en masse, marketed and sold just like everything else.

I hope, for the sake of all that is good and holy in music, that Coldplay continues to tell it like it is ... all the way to the promised land. I am not alone, as Coldplay’s popularity proves. There are many hungry ears waiting for the truth.

Matthew W. Baker

Burbank