One of the many great things about the HBO show Extras are the delightfully self-deprecating celebrity cameos (I think Ben Stiller is my favorite so far). Last week’s episode featured Coldplay’s Chris Martin, a guy who writes a nice pop song, but otherwise appears to be a giant douche.

Martin’s appearance was a pretty-funny send-up of the tradition of the wholly out-of-context celebrity sit-com cameo, particularly when the appearance is that of a pop star, and comes with a wholly-out-of-context performance.

Where this gets odd is that in the episode, Martin agreed to do the cameo on When the Whistle Blows in order to promote his band’s new “greatest hits” album. At the time, I thought this was another gag, riffing on the proclivity of record companies to put out greatest hits album before a band has released its fourth full record.

But as it turns out, Coldplay does have a greatest hits album coming out. Which means that in his stint on Extras, Martin was basically doing the very thing he was mocking — appearing on a sit-com to promote an upcoming album.

Okay, so the album is only coming out on vinyl. For now. Still. Sorta’ funny.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 3:28 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.