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Coldplay in the NME Big Book!!


Mimixxx

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I bought the NME Big Book (£4.99 I must be mad!!!) and it has a`review of Coldplay's year and a small interview with Chris! I've typed it up, here's the review of their year first:

 

CLOCKS WATCHING - YOUR GUIDE TO CHRIS MARTIN'S CRAZIEST YEAR YET, AS COLDPLAY THREATEN TO SWALLOW THE WORLD...

 

1. ‘Such A Rush’

 

Overcome with emotion at ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’ being voted Album of the Year 2002, Coldplay bugger off to America to get their heads together. Or possibly to begin what will occupy them for the most of 2003: conquering the States. With one Ms. Paltrow in tow, and in an atmosphere that NME photographer Kevin Westenberg calls ‘blissful’, they are soon in their stride. The highlight? An outdoor gig on Hollywood Boulevard, where 10,000 fans watch a five song set. ‘Clocks’ and ‘Yellow’ are broadcast live across North America to coincide with the end of the Superbowl. Tampa Bay Buccaneers won. Whoever they are.

 

2. ‘In My Place’

 

The biggest event of Chris Martin and Coldplay’s year? Winning album of the year at the NME Carling Awards undoubtedly. “It’s the best thing to win awards” gushes Christopher. “Well not the best thing.” Refusing to elaborate, it is left to Noel Gallagher to make a crude remark about Ms. Paltrow. Good old Noel.

 

3. ‘High Speed’

 

March, and Chris jets in from the US for the One Big No anti-war show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. He plays a cover of ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ with Ian McCulloch. ‘ Clocks’ is realised.

 

4. ‘Bigger Stronger’

 

“We’re trying to do for Bros what Oasis did for The Beatles,” Chris announces in April, as Coldplay play their biggest British gigs to date at Manchester’s Evening News Arena and London Earl’s Court. “Cooler than Oasis, cleverer than Radiohead, braver than The White Stripes,” declares NME. Recently dubbed a ‘knobhead student’ by Liam Gallagher (for scribbling Fair Trade slogans on his hands/protesting against the Iraq war), a Zen-like Christoph changes ‘Everything’s Not Lost’ at the London show: “If Liam Gallagher’s out to get you/Don’t let it drag you down.” One-nil to Coldplay.

 

5. ‘Trouble’

 

Another month, another anti-war based spat, this time with Damon Albarn. After C’s ‘No War’ comment at the Brit Awards, Dr Albarn, who clearly thinks he’s got a monopoly on this sort of thing ( :lol: Haha SO true!!), slams Chris for turning ‘serious issues’ into a ‘soundbite’. What bollocks!! Anyway, Coldplay didn’t respond – they were probably too busy picking up an Ivor Novello award for their songwriting.

 

6. ‘No More Keeping My Feet On The Ground’

 

Tout’s ticket price: $800. The Hollywood Bowl’s capacity: 17,383. The number of signatures on Coldplay’s Make Trade Fair petition: one million. Throughout June the stats fall like confetti, and Coldplay return to the US. In a matter of days, they establish themselves as the biggest British band across the pond, playing sold out shows at the Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks and New York’s Madison Square Gardens. And talking of confetti (did you see what we did there?), after months of speculation - Chris supposedly proposed by phone during a transatlantic flight in March – reports filter through of Chris and Gwyneth finally announcing their engagement at an upscale New York party thrown by Paltrow’s mother, actress Blythe Danner. Guests include Paltrow’s godfather Steven Spielberg , Mike Myers and Sheryl Crow. Martin denies rumours that Spielberg will give Paltrow away. It will be Darth Vader, he insists. Were a marriage imminent, that is. Which it isn’t.

 

7. ‘God Put A Smile Upon Your Face’

 

On the last night of the US tour, an American fan called Christy pays $350,000 to charity in order to sing ‘In My Place’ live onstage with the band. Which has the edge on sitting in a bath of beans for Comic Relief.

 

8. ‘Politik’

 

He’s got the girl , he’s got the band and now he’s got the, erm forest. Yes, in July, Coldplay announce that they are now the proud owners of a large number of trees in Bangalore, India. It’s all part of the Future Forests scheme, set up by the late Joe Strummer, whereby bands make up for the pollution CD manufacturing causes by planting trees. Like their Make Trade Fair campaigning, this is typical of the political activism that Coldplay maintain throughout 2003. “We are a billboard for the idea, rather than a solution to the problem,” Chris tells reporters during a meeting with Mexican corn farmers in September. “We’re champagne socialists, but we believe in equality.” It’s rare for a pop star to have such perspective. By now, most politically engaged bands would be strutting about giving it the big messianic I am, but Coldplay walk it like they talk it: quietly and with dignity. Comrades, NME salutes you.

 

9. ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’

 

Blam! Splat! Ka-boom! He may look like he couldn’t knock the skin of a rice pudding/punch his way out of a paper bag/crush a grape, but in the middle of summer, El Marto loses his rag with an Australian paparazzo and attacks the snapper’s car with a rock. It’s understandable. With the right photos of Gwyneth and Chris going for up to £100,000, the couple are being continually hounded by a pack of tabloid snappers. ‘Is Chris losing it?’ flap various media outlets, but of course he isn’t. Coldplay return triumphant to the V Festival, scoring a 9.6 on NME.COM readers’ poll (and receiving a 9.2 for technical merit in New Figure Skater). As for the 51 per cent of V punters who tell NME that they think Chris is going ‘bonkers’ – they were all Chilli Peppers and Foo Fighters fans. They could barely spell their own names, never mind assess His Martiness’ mental state.

 

10. ‘Everything’s Not Lost’

 

And then they were gone….As announced exclusively to NME at V, Coldplay are ‘going underground’ for the foreseeable, in order to record their third album and completely reinvent themselves. So what’s next? Does Chris’ tendency to work Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’ into ‘Yellow’ suggest a Euro dance’n’hotpants direction? Do new rockers ‘World Turned Upside Down’ and ‘Poor Me’ mean it’s all Marshall amps from now on? Does Chris’ (excellent) work with electronica bod Faultline mean they might do a ‘Kid A’? Or are they going to get the flat caps out and go folk? The possibilities are endless. Never one to shirk a challenge, Chris declares: “We’ve got to reinvent the wheel.” Let’s hope he was joking. The wheel is probably the most perfect example of man’s ingenuity and has been around for 6000 years. We just want some sterling new songs for 2004.

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And the interview with Chris:

 

CHRISTMAS WITH CHRIS

 

What do you want for Christmas Chris?

 

Fucking hell. I have to come back to that. Actually – I don’t want anything to change. I’ve got pretty much everything I ever dreamed of. So that’s what I want.

 

NME is cooking Christmas dinner this year. Any favourites?

 

Well it was turkey but I have since decided that wasn’t such a great idea. In America I saw a massive sweet shop – they had a chocolate turkey that weighed about 12 pounds. That would be my ideal. I love potatoes too.

 

With chocolate turkey?

 

Well, you know me, I’ll try anything once.

 

Apart from chocolate turkey, what do you do on Christmas Day?

 

My mum and dad always made it pretty cool for us. You get up and open something and then you go out and you watch the Queen, then you go to church and open more presents. Then you have crackers, and invite an old lady round.

 

Any particular old lady?

 

My mum used to take care of this old lady at Christmas who used to wet the chair…I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff! Every year my mum would look after her, because my mum’s a legend ( :blush: Awwww!) My dad always used to hand out the presents. This isn’t cool enough for NME, I understand that. But I don’t care. You’ll get the good answers from The Stokes.

 

Are there any disappointments from your childhood Christmases?

 

I remember one year I wanted something really special and I thought I’d got it. There was this box under the tree. In the box was another box, in that box another. At the 19th box there was a walnut. My dad was playing a trick on me.

 

What did you want?

 

I can’t tell you, its too embarrassing. It was a sort of bicycle.

 

A sort of bicycle? Was it a tricycle? Or a unicycle? Or a tandem?

 

I can’t tell you that. But…well whatever it was, I got it in the end.

 

Who are you at Christmas: Santa Clause or Scrooge?

 

Well it’s certainly been a lot easier to be generous recently with the royalties and what-have-you.

 

But would you consider making gifts, even though you’re loaded?

 

As in some sort of Tracy Island made out of loo paper? I wouldn’t do that. I’d make something if it had some meaning. But I wouldn’t cobble together my own version of the Transformers.

 

What do you give the person who has everything?

 

I do actually struggle with that problem. That’s when you do have to make something yourself. That’s when it means the most. If my dad got me a TVR or something I’d be like, “Thanks. What’s for pudding?” But if he made me a treehouse….That would be special.”

 

What do you want to achieve in the year ahead?

 

We want to record and record and record. We’ve already started. We spend half of the night writing. The great thing about flying back from America is that you’re up all night and you can just work. It strikes me the more fame and success you get, the more you realise that the only thing that’s really worth anything is the thing that made you want to get famous and successful in the first place. And that is writing tunes. It’s not about hanging out with Jay-Z. Although he is cool. That’s not the answer, the answer is putting down your favourite new song or being with the people you love the most. It’s not about the bling bling aspect.

 

What’s a typical day like in the studio for Coldplay right now?

 

It’s hectic and emotional. I’m not quite sure how it is that you can think it’s amazing one minute and shit the next. But we seem to do it.

 

So how do you keep perspective?

 

Two weeks before the realise is the point we’ll have to deal with that.

 

Do you still want a year off?

 

Ha! Well, it’s not exactly a year off. We’ve got some tunes man, let me tell you that! So far all we’ve achieved is managing to scrap 42 songs. I regard that as constructive destruction.

 

How many of those were written in the last 12 months?

 

About 41. Nah 30. But numbers are insignificant. You could say ‘I’ve written 12 songs’ and they’re all rubbish, or you could say you’ve written one song and it could be ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. I’m glamorising it, but we were just in Chicago and we scrapped a lot of songs.

 

What else is inspiring to you as you sit in the studio?

 

Brian Eno and The Cure. Eno made a record called ‘Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks’ he made it for the moon landings. Jonny Cash.

 

Last time we spoke you said you wanted to re-invent the wheel with the third Coldplay album. How far do you think you’ve got with the whole wheel thing?

 

Ha! I think we’d be happy just to re-invent the furry dice.

 

Will people be shocked by the next Coldplay record?

 

No. I don’t think it’s going to be the same because we don’t want it to be. All the bands we love – Blur, Radiohead, U2 – they’re all moving on all the time. Radiohead change but you still get Thom singing – it’s still definitely them. I think what really counts is songs. Our next record will have to have primarily big tunes on it. Melody is the key.

 

What’s your New Year’s Resolution?

 

Get better.

 

Well, Chris, that brings us to the end. Have a nice Christmas.

 

You too. That’s my last interview for a year.

 

Chris’ Top Album:

 

Elbow – Cast of Thousands: My album of the year is Elbow, followed by HTTT and Think Tank in second. If someone new came out with HTTT or Think Tank tomorrow, people would do backflips. Radiohead, Blur and U2 are on such a high level you take it for granted it’ll be really good.

 

Chris’ Top Single:

 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps: I guess in the alternative world they could be considered our peers, but I don’t think of us as being a big band. I think of us as having everything to prove. I think we’ve got this far from a mixture of bravado and lots of good fortune. And we’ve worked very hard. But I still feel like I’d have to open the door for them. Know what I mean?

 

Chris’ Top Live Show:

 

The Music - Byron Bay, Australia: The Music at Splendour in the Grass. I was having the shittiest time in Australia. And I went out the back and just hung out in the crowd, which I hadn’t done for ages, and it was brilliant. I think a lot of people at the back were having assisted enjoyment but everyone was going mental. It was like a rave!

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i brought the big book today and theres a picture on the 2nd page about coldplay were chris made a boy stick his 2 fingers up at the camara and the other 3 are larfin lol its such a cute piccie lol :lol: ...bloody 4:99 tho lol

 

Awww :lol: , Chris doin his duty to save our kids :blush: :lol:

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