===The ultimate Oldplaying Thread===S, BS, TBR, P, AROBTTH, X&Y, VLV, PM===

[I ran away]

Reasons I'm not a Newplayer - No. 6

[video=youtube;UfYqCGcUxNs]

[The Adversary]

Reasons I'm an Oldplayer - Ep No. 10

 

[video=youtube;mkOQc9VxL5M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOQc9VxL5M

[ColdplayingfromKansas]

Reasons I'm an Oldplayer - Ep No. 11

 

 

[insert entire How We Saw the World concert here]

[HowCouldIForget]

Reasons Coldplay Still Makes Good Music Post-Viva Episodes 1-20

*Moving to Mars* *Us Against the World* *Up with the Birds* *U.F.O.* *O* *Christmas Lights* *Atlas* *Ghost Story* *Major Minus* *Don't Let it Break Your Heart* *Hurts Like Heaven* *All Your Friends* *Charlie Brown* *Every Teardrop is a Waterfall* *Midnight* *Wish I Was Here* *Miracles* *Always in My Head* *Up in Flames* *Amazing Day*

 

 

The older music undeniably has more consistent quality :nod: but these things tend to be awfully one-sided. :thinking: It's hard to argue Parchutes/X&Y don't bleed some seriously weak lyrical moments under the surface of our memories. Coldplay's flaws are admittedly much more pronounced now than before. But I believe the Oldplayer label may prove a barrier to enjoying Coldplay's newer music because doing so would fundamentally undermine one's "identity," either internally or on the boards here. That's my psychobabble for the day. :thumbsup: Carry on.

[ColdplayingfromKansas]

^ It's not that we don't enjoy at least some of post-Viva Coldplay's work, it's just that before MX it wasn't just an occasional song here or there that we liked, it was whole albums. Of course Coldplay has always had its flaws, but it's kind of frustrating for us "Oldplayers" that Coldplay seemed to grab onto those flaws and just make them so much bigger and more obvious with the MX era onward. Yeah, there were one or two lyrically weak songs in Coldplay's old discography (In My Place, A Message, A Whisper) but nowadays it seems like there are only one or two lyrically strong songs on each of their albums. The same thing has been happening with the emotion, the instruments, anything you can think to name.

 

I have absolutely nothing against Coldplay changing their sound (although I admit that I will always, always prefer rock over pop or alternative or whatever it is they're doing), but I do have something against them changing the things that made me fall in love with them in the first place. Chris's beautifully emotional lyrics, Jonny's riffs, the way Guy and Will could masterfully put together the final rhythmic touches that made a song go from 0-10. Now, some of those things don't seem to be completely gone, but others (like Chris's lyrics) are quickly dying out.

 

Tl;dr - There's a reason it's one-sided, at least in my mind :P

 

 

Reasons I'm an Oldplayer - Ep No. 10

 

[video=youtube;mkOQc9VxL5M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOQc9VxL5M

 

Okay two things:

 

1. WHY have I never heard this before

2. At around the ~5ish minute mark, you can hear Chris repeating the backing vocals "sex and violence." I'm willing to bet that's the inspiration for the unreleased MX track and now I'm really annoyed that we never got to hear it.

[Nikola]

Eno and Gwyneth and finally having sex ruined Oldplay

[mayrn43]

Eno and Gwyneth and finally having sex ruined Oldplay

What?

[beastwars]

Reasons Coldplay Still Makes Good Music Post-Viva Episodes 1-20

*Moving to Mars* *Us Against the World* *Up with the Birds* *U.F.O.* *O* *Atlas* *Ghost Story* *Major Minus* *Don't Let it Break Your Heart* *Hurts Like Heaven* *All Your Friends* *Charlie Brown* *Every Teardrop is a Waterfall* *Midnight* *Wish I Was Here* *Miracles* *Always in My Head* *Up in Flames* *Amazing Day*

The ones in bold are good, the rest goes from ok to mediocre to awful. Christmas Lights is considered to be the last Oldplay song, so it's not in the list.

The fact is that in 5 years these have been the only good songs they did when they were a band that never missed a beat for more than a decade. There's not the same spirit anymore, that's why we hate the post-viva eras

[Famous Old Painter]

Why is Christmas Lights considered the last Oldplay song? When it was released there was an entire separate thread in the music section about the song for those who didn't approve of where Coldplay was going.

[I ran away]

I have a question for you. When I posted this political comment in the LP7 thread some hours ago, I couldn't help noticing that all three members who liked it were Oldplayers. That made me wonder, might there also be an implicit, very subtle political side to being an Oldplayer ? I have never thought about it that way, to be honest... :thinking:

[gentleparachute]

Are Oldplayers more conservative / less open to new things or directions? Not necessarily a bad thing, just personality / personal preference... I guess you guys may have a more rigid or definite idea of how things should be / music should sound like etc. For me, as long as Coldplay keep their spirit, I will go along for the ride... Although I panicked slightly today when it dawned on me there is a possibility they have completely left behind their classic sound... I sincerely hope they have expanded in both directions (if not all directions), rather than just in the "pop" side of things - for them as musicians I feel they should not be bounded / limited by what they are. In saying that, I hope they continue to have room for and continue to develop their classic "Oldplay" sound as well!

[I ran away]

Nah I was actually wondering if Oldplayers are the opposite, less conservative (I mean conservative as a political term here, not to be confused with being musically conservative), more "free-spirited", peace-loving and anti-establishment (for to be honest, my comment on the LP7 thread was in that direction, I don't know if you've seen it :))

But maybe the whole thing was just coincidence.

[beastwars]

Why is Christmas Lights considered the last Oldplay song? When it was released there was an entire separate thread in the music section about the song for those who didn't approve of where Coldplay was going.

 

Because musically is closer to DAAHF or Everything's Not Lost instead of the MX material

[gentleparachute]

Actually while we're on this Oldplayers' thread, I have an OT story to tell, a confession to make, an apology to add, and an offer as well...

 

Back in the day (up till about VLV era), when internet was slower and online storage space more precious, videos were harder to come by and share... the band also had not released their b-sides box set yet. So what happened was some of us came up with the idea to have an e-mail account with "open access" (shared password) so any fan on here who wanted an mp3 of any non-album song could have access at a place where links would not expire... There was a small group of about 4 of us, mainly led by myself, and using a thread, who maintained this gmail account and sent PM's to any password requests... We did this for ?a couple of years and then eventually life took over in late 2007 and I got on with my life and had a hiatus from here for a number of years...

 

Unfortunately, quite a few fans here were left hanging long after I had "left" and when I came back a couple of years ago, there was a tonne of requests in my Inbox, half of them from fans who had come and gone already :P As such, I owe all these people an apology - and any of the mods here who had to clean up after / answer desperate requests from forum users... Sorry if anyone here was affected personally! I can only say that I was engaging in off-line life!

 

Having become active again in recent weeks, I can't help but notice that sometimes even Oldplayers may not have heard an old song / have access to a recording... I tried accessing this e-mail account again and to my surprise, I managed to gain access with the original user name and password! This now leaves me with a (small) dilemma and (easy) opportunity to leave this small legacy to any Oldplayers out here who may be missing any songs in their collection - it is neatly organised, collected and labelled, and we did develop a system to prevent any issues. And the download links still work as they are attached to the e-mails :laugh3:

 

So, the offer is... would anyone be interested - to either have access to the e-mail account, or even take over the account? :D It contains audio (mp3, real media) only, has pretty much the definitive version of all their non-album songs, and is pre-VLVADAAHF... Therefore naturally, it belongs in the Oldplayers' thread (hence why I have chosen to post here)! I know in this day and age, most likely any interested Oldplayer would probably easily have searched for and found all their old songs / catalogue, but I have noticed a few times over the past weeks that a few people are still missing an odd song here and there, so maybe someone may still have use for this. It is also so easy to use as the song names are the e-mail titles - so just search, click on a song, and download! And if no one needs it anymore, that's ok too ;)

 

So, sorry for the rather long, and OT-post... but thank you for your kind attention. Cheers!

[I ran away]

Actually while we're on this Oldplayers' thread, I have an OT story to tell, a confession to make, an apology to add, and an offer as well...

 

Back in the day (up till about VLV era), when internet was slower and online storage space more precious, videos were harder to come by and share... the band also had not released their b-sides box set yet. So what happened was some of us came up with the idea to have an e-mail account with "open access" (shared password) so any fan on here who wanted an mp3 of any non-album song could have access at a place where links would not expire... There was a small group of about 4 of us, mainly led by myself, and using a thread, who maintained this gmail account and sent PM's to any password requests... We did this for ?a couple of years and then eventually life took over in late 2007 and I got on with my life and had a hiatus from here for a number of years...

 

Unfortunately, quite a few fans here were left hanging long after I had "left" and when I came back a couple of years ago, there was a tonne of requests in my Inbox, half of them from fans who had come and gone already :P As such, I owe all these people an apology - and any of the mods here who had to clean up after / answer desperate requests from forum users... Sorry if anyone here was affected personally! I can only say that I was engaging in off-line life!

 

Having become active again in recent weeks, I can't help but notice that sometimes even Oldplayers may not have heard an old song / have access to a recording... I tried accessing this e-mail account again and to my surprise, I managed to gain access with the original user name and password! This now leaves me with a (small) dilemma and (easy) opportunity to leave this small legacy to any Oldplayers out here who may be missing any songs in their collection - it is neatly organised, collected and labelled, and we did develop a system to prevent any issues. And the download links still work as they are attached to the e-mails :laugh3:

 

So, the offer is... would anyone be interested - to either have access to the e-mail account, or even take over the account? :D It contains audio (mp3, real media) only, has pretty much the definitive version of all their non-album songs, and is pre-VLVADAAHF... Therefore naturally, it belongs in the Oldplayers' thread (hence why I have chosen to post here)! I know in this day and age, most likely any interested Oldplayer would probably easily have searched for and found all their old songs / catalogue, but I have noticed a few times over the past weeks that a few people are still missing an odd song here and there, so maybe someone may still have use for this. It is also so easy to use as the song names are the e-mail titles - so just search, click on a song, and download! And if no one needs it anymore, that's ok too ;)

 

So, sorry for the rather long, and OT-post... but thank you for your kind attention. Cheers!

 

That sounds awesome ! I have all the old songs already, I believe, but I don't have too many live versions or even covers of other songs done by Coldplay during concerts. I would love to browse that account, do you have the credentials ? :D

[gentleparachute]

Of course - check your PM, I just sent you the name, password and back-up e-mail in case it asks... Tell me what you think :D

[The Adversary]

Nah I was actually wondering if Oldplayers are the opposite, less conservative (I mean conservative as a political term here, not to be confused with being musically conservative), more "free-spirited", peace-loving and anti-establishment

It's funny you should say that. One of the things that made Coldplay stand out to me in the beginning was their charity work and political stances (Against the Iraq War) I like U2 for much the same reasons.

[I ran away]

Thanks a lot ! I did a quick browse (will come back to it later when I have more time) and I noticed there were indeed many covers or live recordings I'd never heard of ! A true treasure trove for Oldplayers :thumbsup:

[gentleparachute]

Thanks a lot ! I did a quick browse (will come back to it later when I have more time) and I noticed there were indeed many covers or live recordings I'd never heard of ! A true treasure trove for Oldplayers :thumbsup:

 

You're very welcome... It was originally created / intended for fans like you :)

 

If you like it / think it is worth it, would you like to take over guardianship of this account? The original others whom I co-managed the account with seem to have left the forums / are no longer active... I myself don't know how long I will be able to stay active regularly before I dive underneath and disappear again, so I hope to leave this account with a few others so that it can live on and other fans can benefit :)

[The Adversary]

Are Oldplayers more conservative / less open to new things or directions? Not necessarily a bad thing, just personality / personal preference...

 

It's been explained a million times it's not implicit change we don't like, rather uninspired and bland change. I have no problem with Coldplay changing their sound (VLV was a great record was it not?) I just want them to continue with the same level of artistic authenticity and ambition they had pre Viva.

 

If say for example GS had been a Kid A like album where the tracks followed the lead of Midnight's ambient experimentalism, I wouldn't be here having this conversation with you but instead we have songs like True Love, ASFOS etc.

 

It's not that I'm averse to change like you suggest, it's the simple fact their earlier work is superior on every possible artistic level. Their work is a paradox. It seems to get more juvenile and less mature as it goes on. The early work was far more refined.

[gentleparachute]

It's funny you should say that. One of the things that made Coldplay stand out to me in the beginning was their charity work and political stances (Against the Iraq War) I like U2 for much the same reasons.

 

I think with age, they have become more mainstream and centrist - they have always struck me as people who can appreciate at least two sides to everything... After awhile of having multiple perspectives and seeing the world go round (and round), sometimes more clear-cut opinions / stances get softened... For me, I find it heartening that CM is now looking at the global goals, which hopefully only gets minimally politicised, and which are pretty much goals that almost everyone can get behind

[The Adversary]

I think with age, they have become more mainstream and centrist

Certainly. It's not something that annoys me too much, but it just goes to show they've lost whatever 'edge' they had left. Nothing seemed to highlight it more than in a recent interview where Chris refused to say anything negative about Donald Trump in fear of alienating people. This is the same Chris who had no problem getting up at award ceremonies and stridently claiming he doesn't like "George Bush and all those guys"

 

This is also the same band who had a faux political, sociological song and video poking fun at major establishment figures and lamenting the violent state of conflict in the world. I just can't see them doing anything with that kind of creative nuance ever again.

[gentleparachute]

It's been explained a million times it's not implicit change we don't like, rather uninspired and bland change. I have no problem with Coldplay changing their sound (VLV was a great record was it not?) I just want them to continue with the same level of artistic authenticity and ambition they had pre Viva.

 

If say for example GS had been a Kid A like album where the tracks followed the lead of Midnight's ambient experimentalism, I wouldn't be here having this conversation with you but instead we have songs like True Love, ASFOS etc.

 

It's not that I'm averse to change like you suggest, it's the simple fact their earlier work is superior on every possible artistic level. Their work is a paradox. It seems to get more juvenile and less mature as it goes on. The early work was far more refined.

 

Are Oldplayers more conservative / less open to new things or directions? Not necessarily a bad thing, just personality / personal preference... I guess you guys may have a more rigid or definite idea of how things should be / music should sound like etc. For me, as long as Coldplay keep their spirit, I will go along for the ride...

 

Let me expand... I agree with you that in some ways their creative quality has gone downhill eg cleverness of lyrics, the lyrical / melodic quality (or ear if you like) of their songs... But some of that is still down to perspective - all their songs are still worked on by all the members, and crafted with some degree of care - it may not be as obsessively perfected as it used to be, but I don't think anyone can accuse them of not putting in the effort. As for the end result, I have said before that I don't consider "pop" necessarily worse than "rock" - there are good and bad examples of both. As for some reduction in quality, my response is try and cut them some slack - they are all between 35-40 with young families and treat this seriously as their day-job.. will it always be top-notch? Maybe not, but goodness me, they work, and they try! I also think it is harder to write good lyrics for those dancey, happy tunes - opaque lyrics just do not work, therefore Chris has had to change - as we've all noted, direct lyrics are probably not his forte - he tends to do cringe-worthy :laugh3:

 

I've also previously noted elsewhere that their actual instrumental playing and music-making has improved progressively with each album... AROBTTH had a bigger sound, X&Y became more complex, VLVADAAHF explored new sounds and genres, MX had all the guys starting to put in more musical ideas / motifs into each song (check-out the number of Jonny riffs in HLH and Major Minus), while GS has them playing cleanly and looking into the production side of things... I hope AHFOD continues this aspect of their development even if the lyrics and melodic quality are not what they used to be.

[gentleparachute]

Certainly. It's not something that annoys me too much, but it just goes to show they've lost whatever 'edge' they had left. Nothing seemed to highlight it more than in a recent interview where Chris refused to say anything negative about Donald Trump in fear of alienating people. This is the same Chris who had no problem getting up at award ceremonies and stridently claiming he doesn't like "George Bush and all those guys"

 

This is also the same band who had a faux political, sociological song and video poking fun at major establishment figures and lamenting the violent state of conflict in the world. I just can't see them doing anything with that kind of creative nuance ever again.

 

Maybe with having kids they are now more "considerate" / compassionate people... I find that as I get older, I get more and more reluctant to criticise anything and also have become more accepting of other viewpoints. After all, the people getting criticised / poked fun at in the end are still people too with families etc. The band probably feel "let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone..." As for whatever "edge" they had, I dunno what the appropriate response is to that... age wears away the "fire within" - if they held on to those annoying feelings, it would eventually turn them into tired, bitter people - may be good for songs, but pretty much useless for anything else... Besides, they would then become the "whiners" - I'm sure people would start complaining about how much they "complained" about things from up their presumptuous ivory towers

 

~Oops, sorry for dumping on the Oldplayers' thread... It's just far too easy to do. I will stop discussion now and leave you guys in peace if preferred... However I do love a good discussion :thumbsup:

[beastwars]

You're very welcome... It was originally created / intended for fans like you :)

 

If you like it / think it is worth it, would you like to take over guardianship of this account? The original others whom I co-managed the account with seem to have left the forums / are no longer active... I myself don't know how long I will be able to stay active regularly before I dive underneath and disappear again, so I hope to leave this account with a few others so that it can live on and other fans can benefit :)

 

Could you PM me? I'm interested in it too :)