Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are CHRIS MARTIN (main picture), with GEORGE GALLOWAY,KYLIE MINOGUE,PIANO MAN and NIGEL KENNEDY.

CHRIS MARTIN

Coldplay's Chris Martin scored a worldwide hit with the song Yellow, but the outspoken frontman's latest comments may have left his record company seeing red.

The history of rock music has been littered with high-profile spats between artists and their record companies. George Michael, Michelle Shocked and Prince are just three out of a legion of stars who have jousted with their labels.

So it should come as little surprise to see Chris Martin - who once mocked singer Craig David for sporting "hair like a cauliflower" - taking a pop at the monolith that is EMI.

"Shareholders are the great evil of this modern world," he says. "I'm not comfortable with the slavery that we are all under to shareholders... I don't really care about EMI."

Martin's righteous anger had been provoked by EMI's decision to issue a profit warning in February, solely because the band had delayed the release of its third album, X&Y.

Its success, coupled with that of Coldplay's forthcoming US tour, will probably determine EMI's profits for the year.

However impressive this might be, rock 'n' roll it ain't.

"It's very strange for us that we spent 18 months in the studio just trying to make songs that make us feel a certain way and then suddenly become part of this corporate machine," says Martin.

Chris Martin: On stage again after 18 months

And what an 18 months it was. Producers were hired and fired, tracks were recorded in many different variations, some were even thrown overboard because they sounded too commercial. Finally the required balance has been achieved and the band is back on the road.

Coldplay are a resolutely middle-class outfit. Chris Martin, a Devonian by birth, is the son of a teacher and an accountant. As a child he belted out tunes on the family piano before honing his musical skills at Sherborne public school and Coldplay's alma mater, University College, London.

Martin's songs, characterised by minimalist, impressionistic rock tunes, resonating with shades of Kraftwerk and U2 and lyrics tinged with wistful thoughts of romance and darkened by existentialist angst, often veer inexorably towards the melancholic.

But this heady, crafted, brew of pomp, portent and poetry immediately caught the imagination of young people around the world.

The band's first two albums, Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head, sold in their millions, garnering Brits and Grammies and making Martin a fixture on bedroom walls from Sutton Coldfield to San Diego.

'Hoodie' wearer

It takes some skill and no little luck for a British band to "break" the United States, but this is exactly what Martin and co have done, aided by their songs' exposure on hit television shows like Six Feet Under, ER and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

But, although he labours hard to create bespoke rock music for the discerning listener, the bookish Chris Martin has often exhibited breathtaking lapses of judgement.

Besides gaining a reputation for roughing-up paparazzi photographers, he diced with commercial death at the Brit awards ceremony in 2003, saying, "We are all going to die when George Bush gets his way", a sentiment not echoed during Martin's appearances in the States.

Oh, and he also favours wearing the now-discredited "hoodie", an essential item of couture for any superstar wishing to continue to roam London incognito.

Apples of his eye: Martin's wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, and baby daughter

But Martin has also worked hard for causes close to his heart, including Oxfam and Fair Trade, for whom he is a roving ambassador. He also sang the opening lines on Band Aid 20's version of Do They Know It's Christmas?

Since the last album, his life has been transformed, not least by his marriage to film actress Gwyneth Paltrow in December 2003 and the arrival, some six months later, of their daughter, Apple Blythe Alison Martin.

Even so, X&Y is not a paean to the joys of fatherhood: Martin told one journalist that he would not be "singing about nappies or anything".

Yet he could not resist showing his pleasure at the birth.

Days after Apple's arrival, Coldplay's official website featured a spoof video purporting to be by a band called The Nappies.

Cue Chris Martin, resplendent in glam-rock wig, rapping to his wife and child: "I'll be there through the thin and the thick / I'm gonna clean up all the poo and the sick."

His very introspection and cerebral nature has made his latest outburst - which included a threat to "sink the whole company (EMI) if we have to" - all the more potent.

But, judging from the success of Speed of Sound, Coldplay's new single - and the first US Billboard top 10 entry by a British band since the Beatles' Hey Jude in 1968 - Chris Martin's paymasters might just forget their head boy's tantrum when it comes time to issue next year's dividend.

GEORGE GALLOWAY British MP, George Galloway, let loose with all guns blazing when he came before a US Senate committee that accused him of profiting from the UN's Oil for Food Programme in Iraq. Dismissing the committee's documentary evidence against him as a fake, he then attacked the US policy on Iraq and the "puppet regime" it had installed there. Commentators described how rare it was for such blunt language to be used in the Senate. Full story

KYLIE MINOGUE Messages of support poured in to Kylie Minogue's family home in Melbourne this week when the Australian singer and icon announced that she is to undergo surgery for breast cancer. She has been forced to cancel the Australian and Asian legs of her Showgirl tour, as well as an appearance at the UK's Glastonbury Festival. In a statement, the 36-year-old assured her fans that she was being well taken care of. Full story

PIANO MAN The identity of the so-called Piano Man continues to mystify social workers in Kent. The man was discovered on a beach near Dover six weeks ago, soaking wet and mentally traumatised. When staff at the local hospital gave him a pen and paper in the hope he would write his name, he drew a grand piano. His carers then put him in front of just such an instrument and he stunned them with a virtuoso classical performance. Full story

NIGEL KENNEDY Musician Nigel Kennedy had three of his treasured custom-made violins stolen from his tour bus this week after he'd been performing in Liverpool's Cavern Club where The Beatles used to play. The instruments feature the claret and blue colours and crest of his beloved Aston Villa football team. "They're difficult to replace and I also fear for their safety if a Birmingham City fan ever got their hands on them," said an upset Kennedy. Full story