Coldplay in La Repubblica XL (Italian music magazine) - Mylo Xyloto review, Beehive pictures, interview - Articles

Coldplay have appeared in the Italian music magazine La Repubblica XL this week in an extensive interview about the new album Mylo Xyloto (including the first major review of this era). There were also some interesting pictures from within The Bakery/Beehive... including Coldplay's loo. Back to the album review - XL have given it a favourable 8/10 and compared it to Arcade Fire's Funeral. The closing line of the review entices: MX might very well be a bomb of an album, maybe you just need to give it some time to make your heart beat."

There is also a short video introduction from Chris and Jonny which you can watch here at the Coldplay forum (and also discuss the article, review, interview and pictures). [Many thanks to Patrizio at Coldplayzone, Saketblitz, iriden for the translation, scans and links!]

Interview article:

Coldplay are pissing in front of John Lennon. Seating of WC, they are looking at The Beatles in Hamburg. But it's not lack of respect - it's because in Bakery's bathroom [...] they hanged two pics on the wall: the first shows Lennon in the '70s with an Elvis Presley pin; the second one The Beatles in Germany in 1960, before Ringo Starr came in the band, when they were not-so-well-known...

'Can I go to the toilet?', asks Guy Berryman, Coldplay bassist, the coolest of the band, a beautiful browned hair guy. He's a thing about marathon and he's used to run and run with Chris. Strange: Guy looks dangerously like Joseph Fiennes who fell in love with Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare In Love. And Gwyneth is the Hollywood star, married with Chris. It could be so nice to ask Guy if he had had a casting for that movie and about resemblance...

I'm not here talking about movies, but on the new album, Mylo Xyloto (the first ask 'What the fucking hell it means?' will win a peluche-Mylo Xyloto), out on October, 25th (in Italy that's the release date), anticipated by the two singles ETIAW and Paradise. [...]

I see Berryman vanishing in another room so I go upstairs in the Bakery. On the walls graffitis are all over. They reminds me the new album atmosphere and ETIAW video. Will comes to me - he's the factotum in the band, called 'the decisionist' of the gang. Anyway, my interview is planned with Chris and Jonny. So, look at there: they are sitting on a table, seeing a picture of a young Elvis Presley wearing a a cowboy hat, between his mum Gladys and his father Vernon. 'That's right, we are Elvis fans, of course'! Sounds weird: Coldplay are intrugued with rock history, they feel respect for the past but at the same time with Eno they are loking for a future outside rock music for their songs. That's the reason of Princess Of China - a duet with r'n'b' queen, Rihanna.

Let's start with the title (yes, we want to talk about it too!) Chris, what's Mylo Xyloto? Which language is come from? It seems ancient greek but...

It's very very modern english! It has to be pronounced [Mylo Ksailotou]. Two words invented by us, as the band name. Coldplay doesn't mean anything. Or, wait a minute... It's not true we're not meaning anything: it's 'cause Coldplay didn't exist as a word in the dictionary but from 1998 on it identifies us. And, as Mylo Xyloto, is a word you can't find googling in the web. So, you cannot trust in Internet to know what it means. We wanted a fresh, original, unknown word, linked only to us and no more. [A word] like Yaho, Google and iTunes: mysterious and different from all the stuff you could find surfing on the web...

Chris, in ETIAW you sing: 'I turn the music up/I shut the world outside'. It's a teenager stuff, isn't?

Not only that. It's usual for us to escape from reality through music. We do it. Before MX studio sessions, for two entire years every morning I ran and ran and, in the meanwhile, I have listened a different album every day. I was back to be a music fan: I forgot how was wonderful listening to our colleagues music.

Talking about Charlie Brown, if you can listen to it you realize you like Arcade Fire a lot.

Yes, we are not scared to confess. This love for them has to be pulled out somewhere and in some ways. It's really important for us to keep our fascination for the other bands alive, without feeling envy. Competition is ok, but you have to recognize the other bands value. After our Grammy, Radiohead sent us a letter with all their congrats

MX is yout fifth album but, sorry for that, i'm still not aware about a thing: Buckland is or is not a great guitarist? Chris, what do you think 'bout it?

He's not very highly thought of, because he doesn't show off technique. But I think 'guitar gods' (whom usually play so long solo riffs) are ridiculous. Jonny is great because writes fantastic melodies. I love him. Yes, Matt Bellamy is a bright musicist and Jonny Greenwood is very good, but in my opinion Jony is still the number 1.

And you, Buckland, what's your response?

My favourite riff is in Neil Youg's Cinnamon Girl, 1969: a single note, that's all

Is it true that MX was influenced by George Orwell's 1984 and Cormac McCarthy's The Road?

Yes, the concept of this album is the story of two people oppressed by the world they're living in. They meet each other, they fall in love and try to run away together. Paradise talks about a girl who's feeling lost, Charlie Brown is the male character running away with her. It starts like a bad moment but it has a peaceful and sweet end.

Like ETIAW, a song dominated by a euphoric rhythm, with some end of 80's house elements. Did you get mixep up with? Did you go in Spain during summer to dance, like thousand of english people?

Who? Us? Nope, we attended our middle schools in that period! We went in Spain on holidays, but along with our parents. They forced to go to bed at 10pm. Never seen a disco...

So, where did you heard Ritmo de la noche that's the background of ETIAW?

In a movie called Biutiful, directed by Inarritu, starring Javier Bardem. There was a scene in a club and someone played Ritmo de la noche, even if the original rendition was by Peter Allen, a 70's singer.

It's a perfect dance song. Why did you let Swedish House Mafia to remix it?

Initially, we asked this to the Sicilian Mafia but they were not so interested into. Can we joke with the Sicilian Mafia, right? We love Sicily. Do you think someone won't take it easy?

No, I don't think so, but it's much better going on with this interview. Let's talk about MX artwork. I see you have dozen of books about graffitis from every part of the world and the artwork itself was drawn by you and your friend Paris, a writer from Bristol. Why?

It's freedom of a total expression. We paint - or, at least, we making a scene with spray cans. We thought about a very cool graphic project, but in a second moment MX's music forced us towards experimentations. We are on the scene since more than 10 years, so sometimes we feel ourselves force to go as far as we do. Everyone has an opinion about us and on the web there's too much negativity. So we stopped us and said: let's invent a new our own private world, with our colours and our street art. As in a gang: to distinguish ourselves and to be not so scared of.

Are you scared about something? Why: you sold millions of copies and Viva La Vida... was the best selling album of 2008! Chris, are you afraid about what?

Nothing indeed! But when a band becomes big and important - and we were for a while (What? Is he humble now?), you appeals to too much people and not everybody spend such good words about you. It's for this reason we have never googled our name.

With some strange lyrics as 'I'd Rather be a comma than a full stop', you were asking for it!

... my relatives firstly! My uncle wrote me a letter and said that part of ETIAW is terrifying! But in my opinion is a good thing: at least i'm not dead. There's a comma, and something will happen tomorrow.

Let's criticise yourself by our own now. Why in your latest gigs you tributed Amy Winehouse singing Rehab, with that macabre verse like 'They tried to make me go to rehab and I said no, no, no'?

Because we have had some gigs during the same week Amy was found dead. And it is a great song indeed! Even Apple and Moses are used to sing it. And they also know every Katy Perry lyrics telling 'bout Roipnol and other pills. They also repeat a verse from Lil Wayne's Lollipop: 'She said lick like a lollipop'. It's just pop music, nothing to be worried about.

Mylo Xyloto album review:

The concept is as old as the world. A boy and a girl loving each other. But Chris Martin goes wild...

"‎'A boy meets girl, fall in love, struggling to stay together, and the prudent old history of the world seems to be the concept behind the meaning of Mylo Xyloto. (Read the interview on page 40, the fifth album by Coldplay, the sequel Viva La Vida ...best-selling album in the world in 2008.) Concept, yes, but, unfortunately, does not always mean entirely progressive, although MX is a great progression from the previous discs. Here I present to you my analysis of the album, after having approached the triumphant rock of Arcade Fire, the experience of hearing bands like Vampire Weekend (similar to Major Minus) and the eternal Talking Heads, I am able to account how successful MX may or may not be – after all, U2 steamed away from the production by Brian Eno after a while, maybe for the best, maybe not. The evidence lies within Coldplay’s newest set of songs.

I find the inspiration Coldplay uses, arrives from unexpected places, like the 90's dance, in fact- a sample of this Coldplay convey is in Every Teardrop ... thought to have hit the group's house Saccado. (‘El De La Noche Rhythm’ - those over 35 may know it well) stolen from the 70's pop singer Peter Allen. And even though Coldplay’s lyrics are in the opposite direction, (the lack of a purpose in life, drug addiction, which destroys the employment business, euphoric music, pure ecstasy) – Chris writes how things like how he compares adolescent eyes to the stars, with his fists in his pockets and claims indirectly how he is plainly not at all interested in whatever lyrics are supposedly popular to a certain market. Is this for the best, Coldplay? Almost every song we find on the album is written of alienation, with Every Teardrop being a hymn of salvation, and everything else MX turning out to be made of sadness and euphoria. So, saying this, Hurts like Heaven, we can imagine, is ETIAW’s younger sister. Arcade Fire’s melodies and dark color work without mystical treatment, and the same goes for U2 (Unforgettable Fire). We can see signs of this same aura in Charlie Brown. This is the hit that Arcade Fire could never write (and I bet this will be the next BIG single after 'Paradise'?). Finally, Us Against The World Turns out to be a bittersweet, romantic ballad that could we can not miss…for the world. MX might very well be a bomb of an album, maybe you just need to give it some time to make your heart beat.'"

(Rating: 8/10 - Suggested record to be compared with Mylo Xyloto: Arcade Fire - Funeral)

Just to compare, here all the ratings for other albums:

Apparat: The Devil's Walk 6.8

My Brightest Diamond: All things Will Unwind 7.4

Justice: Audio, Video Disco 7.3

Noel Gallagher: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds 7.0

Zola Jesus: Conatus 8.0

Steven Wilson: Grace for Drowning 7.5

Peter Gabriel: New Blood 6.5

Evanescence: Evanescence 5.0

David Guetta: Nothing But The Beat 4.8

...A Toys Orchestra: Midnight ®evolution 7.0