No thanks, Spotify: Coldplay just set a digital album sales record and is sitting atop the Billboard 200...

Or as one publisher remarked this week, "getting played is nice, getting paid is better."

This is exactly the opposite result that Spotify wanted, reports the Digital Music News website. Because after skipping Spotify entirely on their latest release, Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay has scored a one-week, digital album sales record in the UK, as we reported a couple of days ago. That is, digital sales north of 83,000, part of an impressive, chart-topping tally of 208,343 units in the UK alone.

Digital accounted for nearly 40 percent of that total, a trend first picked up after three days of sales. And, that offers a strong lead-in to the US-based tally, expected from Soundscan in the next day or so. The Coldplay total beats a relatively fresh digital album record from Take That, and the rapid succession isn't an accident. Indeed, digital albums are still showing strong growth on a percentage basis, and Coldplay seems motivated to maximize returns from the gain.

All of which begs the more important question: what does this all mean for Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, and ilk? The question is whether Coldplay-level bands start rethinking their sales approaches entirely, spurred by this success.

UK CHARTS NEWS LATEST: Florence + The Machine’s Ceremonials is poised to end Coldplay’s run at the top of the UK artist albums chart after just a week. Coldplay are sandwiched in second place by two brand new albums with Ceremonials at one and Virgin’s Professor Green currently a new entry in third place with At Your Inconvenience. And there are another three brand new albums presently occupying Top 10 slots with Columbia’s Manic Street Preachers retrospective National Treasures fifth, Rizzle Kicks’ Island debut Stereo Typical sixth and Decca act Alfie Boe’s Alfie eighth. Sour Marsh’s Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds completes the top five dropping 2-4.

US CHART NEWS LATEST: As expected, Coldplay climbs in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with Mylo Xyloto selling 447,000 in its debut week according to Nielsen SoundScan. MX's bow marks the third largest sales week of the year for an album, after Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" debut (1.1 million) and Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter IV" start (964,000). Mylo Xyloto also earns the biggest week for a rock effort since U2's "No Line On the Horizon" debuted at No. 1 with 484,000 on the chart dated March 21, 2009. Mylo Xyloto is Coldplay's third straight studio set to reach No. 1. Its previous two -- 2008's "Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends" and 2005's "X&Y" -- both debuted at No. 1 as well, with 721,000 and 737,000 sold, respectively.

Comments from the Digital Music News website about Spotify and Coldplay: (not our content or views!)

Typical wrong example !! For a few bands not needing any streaming service to be best-sellers, how many thousand of other all around the world are very happy to have the possibility to be easily discovered, heard and to have their songs used in the playlists of users of the streaming services and by this way to have more chance to attract people to come see them live !! Great music is not only the fact of best sellers !! If it was that way that would be very sad !! Then personally, I'm not going to cry if Coldplay is not on Spotify, first, because it's long time ago they haven't made a good album and 2nd because, in my opinion, they are thinking the wrong way !! [soundofus.com]

Artists have not devalued music, "fans" have by downloading music from free peer sharing sites. Also, the industry didn't do itself any favours by trying to battle the problem with fines rather than by providing consumers with good options for download services so they could continue to consume music legally. Essentially, they perpetuated the problem. Coldplay is Coldplay and they will always sell records. I doubt they would have been impacted one iota if they had made their product available on Spotify or other streaming services. I use streaming services pretty much exclusively and I will not be purchasing the album but I would have given it a listen if it were available. Wonder how many others are in the same boat or how many will be driven to the illegal download because they already pay for a music service? Isn't the issue here less about what Spotify pays and more about how the labels share streaming revenues with artists? Just my 2 cents ... [MusicLoverCanada]

The problem people seem to be missing is even if bypassing streaming services is only a play for the bigger established acts, if these acts pull their content from Spotify etc. then subscriber numbers would be massively hit. It will be the mainstream music fans making up the majority of subscribers that Spotify hopes to attract. Without the big name acts available on their service they simply will not be able to attract the number of subscribers that they now need due to the level of investment in the service. A niche music discovery service is hardly what Spotify has in mind. [newm]

Wow, devaluing music! Really!? The fact that people are "stealing" and trading music means they are giving it attention, that is a great value. I can say that Coldplay has been a part of my "social tribe" conversation for over ten years, this past week NONE of us has spoken of the new music, not once. Reason being, we are too busy listening to new music to even pay attention to the new Coldplay. Which proves my point, there are thousands of US's and Coldplays our there and they are a stream away. Which would you rather listen to, the one that is greedy and wants 12 dollars for a box of air, or the one that is doing it for the sheer love of the ART and happy to even have fans, at all!! [Kevin King]

More photos of Coldplay on the TODAY Show at Rockefeller Plaza {21st October 2011):