[Daily Mail] Are Coldplay the worst thing that's happened to rock?(ADD YOUR COMMENT!)

[busybeeburns]

 

Add your comment - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1026087/OPINION-Are-Coldplay-worst-thing-thats-happened-rock.html#addComment

 

Do you remember that terrifying scene at the end of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers when the nice, sweet girl goes up to Donald Sutherland, thinking he's still a trustworthy human, and he lets out a terrible, blood- curdling shriek which proves that - oh horror! - he too has had his body invaded by the vile, plant-like aliens?

 

Well, I think my wife went through a very similar experience in the car this week when I tried inflicting on her the new Coldplay album Viva La Vida.

 

'Oh come on. Don't be so prejudiced. It really isn't that bad,' I said. 'Yes it is bad! It's worse than bad. It's evil!' she said.

 

'Well, I'm sorry, but as a rock critic I'm paid to have an open mind and, actually, I think the title track's quite catchy,' I said.

 

It was then, glancing briefly across, that I caught the dawning horror in her eyes. The horror of a woman finally realising that her husband has lost the last vestiges of his sanity.

 

My wife was quite right, of course, as she usually is. Coldplay really are one of the very worst things to have happened to popular music in at least a decade.

 

But as I was reminded on that car journey, the real problem with Coldplay is not that their music is horrendously bad. Rather, it's that it's not quite bad enough to put off millions and millions of otherwise nice, sane, God-fearing folk from hurrying to the shops to buy it.

 

This is what makes Coldplay so insidiously dangerous.

 

They take all the most easily likeable bits from some of your favourite bands - the shimmery guitars and floating-in-space atmospherics of Pink Floyd, the soaring falsetto of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, the epic, anthem quality of U2 in their pomp - to create a sound exactly like the one you'd get if you programmed a super-computer to create 'pop/rock music most likely to fill stadia, sell records and alienate no one'.

 

As bad, if not worse, is the effect they've had on music, generally. Coldplay are almost certainly responsible for the emergence of a whole generation of anaemic simperers, with cracked, husky, oh-love-me-please-I'm-so-shy-and-sensitive voices, and slushy ballads - among the worst offenders being James Blunt.

 

The girls may like it, but it has about as much to do with the testosterone-fuelled spirit of rock 'n' roll rebellion as a bowl of organic tofu.

 

And if you think Coldplay's music is bland and generic, you should try listening to their lyrics. 'The future's for discovering/ The space in which we're travelling,' goes one typically profound couplet from their biggest selling (10 million) album to date, X&Y.

 

'What? You mean the future's not, as I'd always thought before, for finding out what happened yesterday?' you might teasingly ask.

 

But you never do, obviously, because that's not the point of Coldplay lyrics.

 

Their purpose is not to give new insights into the meaning of life or the secrets of the universe or even what it's like being a millionaire English rock star (Chris Martin) married to a Hollywood actress (Gwyneth Paltrow) with a daughter bafflingly named after the world's dullest fruit (Apple).

 

Rather, they're designed to generate exactly the right, crowd-pleasing blend of postmillennial angst, fake profundity, and touchy-feely, self-help manual positivity.

 

As to what his English teachers at his old public school, Sherborne, make of lines like 'You and me are floating on a tidal wave together/ You and me are drifting into outer space', I can only speculate. But I suspect they might well take issue with the hackneyed nature of the imagery (he'll be rhyming 'Moon' with 'June' next - always supposing he hasn't done so already).

 

If there's one thing Coldplay fans are most definitely not, it's critically discerning. Coldplay are for people who don't mind a bit of rock music, so long as it's had every last scrap of adventurousness, edginess, obscurity or difficulty - (all the things, in fact, that get real music lovers excited) - surgically removed.

 

The most obvious similarity is with Radiohead.

 

Coldplay formed in 1997, just when Radiohead were starting to become that rare thing - a band which is both critically admired and commercially enormous, and they've always had much in common. There's the fact that both went to public school, that they have lead singers who will insist on lecturing us ad nauseam on PC causes such as fair trade and global warming, and that musically they're very nearly like peas in a pod.

 

There's one crucial difference though. However catchy Radiohead's melodies, however honeyed the soaring vocals, you're never quite allowed to forget that this is chewy, intellectual, art-house rock which could off at a weird tangent any second. Coldplay never quite dare do that.

 

Resolutely mid-tempo and medium volume, their music's main purpose is not to frighten the horses. You can play it in your car, you can play it as background music at dinner parties, you could play it at a wedding or a funeral and nobody would much mind.

 

When record industry executives talk about bands who 'shift units' - as opposed to ' selling albums' - Coldplay (30million album sales, and counting) are their dream model.

 

In 2005, when it was announced that Coldplay X&Y was not, as previously expected, to be released in that fiscal year, the share price of their parent company EMI dropped by 15 per cent.

 

Little wonder that the record company's new boss, Guy Hands, described Viva La Vida 'the most anticipated album of the year'. By accountants, certainly, if not the critics.

 

If Coldplay were a virus, they wouldn't be Ebola - the feared tropical disease that boils your insides, but kills its hosts far too rapidly to cause a pandemic.

 

They'd be more like the common cold - absolutely everywhere and annoying when you catch it, but not quite so life threatening that you feel too ill or too embarrassed to stop spreading it round the rest of the office.

 

In other words, Coldplay aren't a threat to the very fabric of civilisation - just a ubiquitous pain with which we shall, I fear, have to learn to live for many years to come.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1026087/OPINION-Are-Coldplay-worst-thing-thats-happened-rock.html

[Stefan8]

:dozey:

[KellieP]

How much money did that guy get to write that?

 

everyone has their right to choosing who they like and don't like but it doesn't mean that you have to exploit your oppinion and try and prove your right. Everyone is different and everyone can make decisions for themselves. In my oppinion that guy is just voicing his oppinion of Coldplay and he needs to respect that Coldplay are people to and that what he says can be quite insulting to them.

 

P.S. Guy who wrote the article, I'll share my oppinion with you. I HATE YOU!

[Clark]

Whats up with the "Coldplay are Rubbish" bandwagon? i love the way at the start we admits that he quite liked it! A terrible piece of writing that is following other publications. Doesn't the Daily Mail think all music is evil anyway? you can't listen to MCR coz they are too dangerous and you can't listen to Coldplay coz they aren't dangerous enough. Wnkr!

[rudy_o]

^ agree!

[Cobalt]

Yeah. Sure.

 

Just because they've opened up a different type of rock apart from your standard rock'n'roll doesn't mean they suck :rolleyes:

[sasa08]

What to expect from someone who thinks an apple is 'dull'?? That says a lot about the person who wrote this.

 

Would be very funny if no one commented on his article :D

[Ron Burgandy]

Anything that comes from the Daily Mail or the red tops is not worth reading.

 

I havent even read the above article and i dont intend to. Its bound to be a load of rubbish.

[busybeeburns]

red tops?

[Mimixxx]

Another day, another slagging off.

 

Is it any wonder Chris finds it hard to trust journalists?

 

I despise the Mail and everything it stands for anyway, so I'm not reading this.

[LifeInTechnicolor]

I find all these negative comments quite funny. Coldplay are getting slammed by alot of critics. Not sure why...but maybe because they are in the soft rock category or maybe Chris Martin just doesn't have enough charisma of what a lead singer of a rock band should have. You gotta have a laugh :laugh3: I just can't wait to buy the album tomorrow and I will be listening to it all day long. I hope I'm gonna like it :cool:

[Ron Burgandy]

red tops?

 

Sun

Mirror

Star

NOTW

People

[twistedCLOCKS]

I find all these negative comments quite funny. Coldplay are getting slammed by alot of critics. Not sure why...but maybe because they are in the soft rock category or maybe Chris Martin just doesn't have enough charisma of what a lead singer of a rock band should have. You gotta have a laugh :laugh3: I just can't wait to buy the album tomorrow and I will be listening to it all day long. I hope I'm gonna like it :cool:

 

 

it's jealousy i say. people just want to find faults in everything and everyone.

[Mimixxx]

Not jealousy, I think it's more to do with wanting publicity and it's working.

 

I can't believe how bad it's been this time around, this is now the FOURTH attack on them in a few weeks. It must be so disheartening.

[twistedCLOCKS]

and that's what i wouldn't be able to handle ^

 

it's funny how when the media or whatever has a go at a "famous" person they are expected to cope it and if they act like they are effected by it, more shit is given to them.......but then again if i was that famous (coldplay that is) and had that kind of success i wouldnt give a shit cos clearly the good out weighs the bad.

[guyy]

Ok, I've seen anough of this junk. Time to give him some of his own medicine. Not that he'll read this, but that way I can be even more nasty.

 

 

"Coldplay really are one of the very worst things to have happened to popular music in at least a decade."

 

Really? What exactly can you back up that claim with, and how many other bands have you said the same thing about? And anyway, popular music is a wasteland of horribleness; if something bad happens to it, that's a good thing.

 

 

"...it has about as much to do with the testosterone-fuelled spirit of rock 'n' roll rebellion as a bowl of organic tofu."

 

This, you idiot, is exactly why I like Coldplay and not most other rock bands. The same is most likely true of most of their other fans.

 

 

"The most obvious similarity is with Radiohead."

 

No. This is just wrong, and I'm not going to explain why, again.

 

 

"As to what his English teachers at his old public school, Sherborne, make of lines like 'You and me are floating on a tidal wave together/ You and me are drifting into outer space', I can only speculate."

 

Yeah, thanks for choosing the poorest metaphor in all of Coldplay's music and exaggerating how bad it is while not using any metaphors at all that I can see in your review. Though I can hardly expect you to bother, since you don't care.

 

 

"You can play it in your car, you can play it as background music at dinner parties, you could play it at a wedding or a funeral and nobody would much mind."

 

Is that supposed to be a complaint?

 

 

"They'd be more like the common cold - absolutely everywhere and annoying when you catch it, but not quite so life threatening that you feel too ill or too embarrassed to stop spreading it round the rest of the office."

 

Oh wait, here's a metaphor. But it's a stupid one, because nobody likes getting a cold, but lots of people like Coldplay. You fail again.

 

 

"In other words, Coldplay aren't a threat to the very fabric of civilisation - just a ubiquitous pain with which we shall, I fear, have to learn to live for many years to come."

 

Well, some of us learned to live with them instantly, and later wondered how we lived without them. And they're not "ubiquitous;" stop throwing around absolutes.

[Mimixxx]

I'd give up, I'm a paranoid person so I'd just want to hide.

 

It's never Coldplay they have a go at either, it's Chris.

 

Sigh.

[melanieau]

Chris needs to just start telling people off...he's getting bad press for essentially being a nice guy? That is fucked.

 

I would LOVE to know who this guys favorite band is..:dozey:

[vivian3]

I agree with him. Coldplay are shallow and mainstream

 

*NOT*

 

you know, this is a classic example of a shallow person who can't think any deeper and analyze the true meaning of coldplay songs.

if for him a coldplay song it's just a restaurant's music backround then he is not even worth to discuss.

i advise him and his stupid shallow wife to listen AGAIN to the WHOLE album, see how it is organized, how the lyrics can be influenced by music.

I think it's hard for people to appreciate new things that barly haven't been done before and that's why it makes me angry a little bit.

[sebrat]

"the testosterone-fueled spirit of rock and roll"?

 

perhaps in this guy's head, but come on! who gives a flying fuck about every other bland, "GARRR" American rock band, it's so fake. At least Coldplay are genuine in their music, the same cannot be said for this asshole's statement.

 

fuck the British press, someone needs to get them to stop painting popular, genuine bands like Coldplay as unpopular just because of some asshole journo's opinion - you people do not rule the world, your opinions are not those of the majority

 

for the record, this piece epitomises everything that is wrong with music journalism today. this and just about everything published by Rolling Stone

[coldpatrix]

Boooooooo!

[Cris_Santos]

The journalists found out that talking sh*t about Coldplay sells much more than saying anything good about them... now they're in a rush to see who can go further. This guy was extremely unpolite. He doesn't like it, ok. But he's not above us all to say he knows what's right and wrong and call us a bunch of idiots.

[Glossal Fragster]

i didnt read much of that article...when i see sumone going on about hating coldplay and saying why they ruined rock music i just think "why should i read the rest of this? like its gonna change my mind!" :D

[mc_squared]

I see no reason why this should ever have been posted. It's only giving the article more recognition that it doesn't deserve.:dozey:

[Littlewhiteshadows]

I doubt they'll let it get published, so this is what I said:

 

You're wrong. Shut up and be ashamed of your incredibly bad journalism. Radiohead compared to Coldplay? I thought ears were kind of essential for being a rock journalist? Radiohead bore the pants off me, Coldplay don't. Rock is not what you tell us to like, it's about what we like. I don't buy Coldplay albums because everyone else does, I buy them because I love the music and nobody but me has influenced that opinion. As if I care what some EMI exec wants me to buy, for crying out loud. I'm more likely to be influenced by my dog. However, by jumping on the boring 'nobody likes Coldplay' bandwagon, you've shown yourself to have no opinion of your own. So what if your wife doesn't like them? The Osmonds more her cup of tea? You're the rock critic, she's the suburban housewife. If you're going to let her do your job for you, maybe you ought to do a swop.