Non-rock star rock stars Coldplay endear themselves with music, manner

 

Way back at the turn of the century, a quartet of nice young working class boys, who met at the University College London, made an album called Parachutes featuring a catchy midtempo ditty with an earworm chorus that touted the emotional versatility of the color yellow.

 

The band was called Coldplay and it specialized in pleasant, lilting melodies that seemed to easily slip back and forth between mournful and uplifting, punctuated with anthemic choruses worthy of U2. With the testosterone-fueled nu metal crowd near the top of the charts and Radiohead confusing fans with the prickly, electronic-laced Kid A, Coldplay's familiar, alt-rock sound seemed like an oasis for folks who like to wave their hands back and forth and sing along at concerts.

 

Like all successful bands, Coldplay has its detractors but isn't polarizing like Radiohead's recent efforts or the Mars Volta. Coldplay songs either snuggle up next to listeners' heads and hearts (and if you're real sensitive, maybe even your soul) or for most nonfans float benignly through one ear and out the other leaving snatches of sweet melody to run a few laps through the brain before quietly fading until the next time you walk into a Starbucks or turn on your television or AAA radio station.

 

When the group takes the stage Monday at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, the bulk of the audience will know every word to every song. They will happily bask in the awkwardly endearing glow of singer Chris Martin, whose confident but self-deprecating "golly, how did we become one of the biggest bands in the world'' visage makes him seem like the boy next door who done real, real good.

 

Despite marrying and breeding with actress Gwyneth Paltrow and giving their firstborn one of those splashy Hollywood baby names (Apple Blythe Alison Martin), the singer still doesn't appear to carry himself like a rock star.

 

Where Oasis (particularly Liam Gallagher) seems to work at being obnoxious, aloof "rock stars'' tearing others down in the process, and Radiohead keeps the world at arm's length until it's ready to unleash its latest ARTISTIC STATEMENT, Martin and his mates come across as the sensitive, artistic fantasy boyfriends that many a young woman says she wants even as she dates the obnoxious, entitled wannabe rock star.

 

Coldplay wants people to like it and wants to help people like themselves. Quietly and consistently the band gives a portion of its earnings to charities (Martin has been a vocal supporter of the relief organization Oxfam International), and there is no VIP section for music geeks, tastemakers or fans with an I-liked-them-before-they-were-famous provincialism.

 

Anybody and everybody who appreciates a nakedly emotional lyric and a soaring melody is invited to Coldplay's musical gathering, and if you feel like giving someone a hug, just wait until the chorus and you'll have the perfect soundtrack.

 

Starts with friendship

 

The foursome -- pianist/guitarist/lead singer Martin, guitarist Jon Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion -- came together in London after students Martin and Buckland struck up a friendship that became a musical partnership in the mid 1990s. The duo was soon joined by Berryman, followed by Champion, an accomplished guitarist, pianist and tin whistle player who picked up the drumsticks because he desperately wanted to be in the band.

 

Taking the name Coldplay from a friend who thought it too depressing for his own band, the quartet started gigging heavily and garnering notice. The band recorded its hard-to-find (only 500 were pressed) Safety EP followed by the three-song Brothers and Sisters EP and, after signing with Parlophone, The Blue Room EP.

 

Despite only having a set's worth of songs, a bunch of shows and the stamp of approval from respected BBC radio disc jockey Steve Lamacq under its belt, the buzz began in earnest before Coldplay recorded a full album.

 

The band's debut album, Parachutes, released in the summer of 2000, turned the buzz into a roar on both sides of the pond. The single Yellow with its plaintive love lyrics ("look at the stars, look how they shine for you''), its familiar midtempo groove and cool, stylish video broke the band worldwide, making them instant stars.

 

While detractors cried "Radiohead lite,'' the album stayed in the Top 10 in the U.K. for 33 weeks and won a Brit award for best British album and a Grammy for best alternative music album.

 

By the time the band finished touring and reconvened for the second album, it was feeling the pressure of its meteoric rise and recording was tough with the notoriously hyperbolic British media spreading breakup rumors.

 

The band -- who like the Doors and U2 splits royalties evenly and is a democracy -- not only didn't breakup but also produced a more elaborate, accomplished album in 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head featuring the 9/11-inspired Politik, the chiming U2-sounding Clocks and the piano-driven The Scientist.

 

Now officially huge, Coldplay saw the Radiohead comparisons wither and suddenly found itself as "the band being compared to'' as almost every nominal alt-rock band with a piano was sucked into Coldplay's wake.

 

Bands such as Muse, Keane, Doves, Elbow and Travis have all benefited commercially from Coldplay's success, but also find themselves having to answer questions about being tagged as the latest Coldplay Jr., despite the fact that several of the aforementioned groups existed before Yellow.

 

'Fix You' tour

 

Now the band is touring behind last year's X&Y, an album that further cements its amalgam of U2, Echo & the Bunnymen and '80s Brit pop bands into the Coldplay sound. Martin still often sounds like he's channeling Bono doing a Jeff Buckley impression of Ian McCullough, but the band's comforting and pleasant songs and Martin's way with a melody and a heartening turn of phrase still expertly pluck at the heartstrings.

 

The album's second single, Fix You, sums up the band's approach musically and lyrically. (Martin has on separate occasions said the song was inspired by

Coldplay Jrs.'' Muse and Elbow.) It begins softly with a mournful church organ that grows into an anthemic chorus and middle section before it ends quietly while Martin's lyrics reassure listeners that it will all be OK.

 

"When you try your best but you don't succeed, when you get what you want but not what you need, when you feel so tired but you can't sleep, stuck in reverse,

 

"Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones and I will try to fix you.''

Obviously, Coldplay can't fix everyone and eventually there will be a backlash to the band's soothing (now mainstream) alt-rock sound and nice-guy anti-image. But if you're willing to let it in, it will do its best to make your insides feel warm and fuzzy, to give you hope as you go about your day and to leave a pretty melody floating inside your head.

 

It may not exactly be rock and roll.

 

But millions of people like it.

 

http://www.ohio.com

Fix you tour? WTF? though..nice article.

:lol: :lol:

and I can't stand the never ending comparison with U2...U2-sounding Clocks? where? :stunned: