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Coldplay 'wrong' on Mylo Xyloto streaming boycott - industry expert reports

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Legal action against illegal file-sharers has helped to bring an 8 per cent rise in global digital-music revenues, but an industry report claims stars should stop boycotting streaming services such as Spotify, writes The Independent today.

A rise in the take-up of legal music-subscription services helped digital revenues to hit $5.2bn (£3.3bn) in 2011, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said. One in four internet users still accesses unauthorised services on a monthly basis. But legislation to inhibit file-sharing has caused a drop in illegal activity.

The removal of the US file-sharing site LimeWire and the Hong Kong-based Megaupload has helped to reduce the use of peer-to-peer services by 26 per cent. However, music fans need to see the latest releases on legal services and the decision by artists including Coldplay, who withheld their Mylo Xyloto album from Spotify to maximise full-price sales, is harming the industry.

Rob Wells, president of Global Digital Business at Universal Music, said: "While the individual payment for a stream is lower than a download, every time that track is played it triggers a royalty payment. Artists need to be patient."

We wrote at the end of October that Coldplay had decided not to release their album Mylo Xyloto onto Spotify and other streaming sites last month - and after the debacle involving Jon Hopkins, their decision appeared at the time to be fully justified. Hopkins, a musician and collaborator with Coldplay (on Viva la Vida), tweeted: "Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck spotify. Radio 1 pay about £50 for each play."

Tweet on 17th November from Jon Hopkins: "Fuck Spotify"

New Photos of Chris Martin in London (with Brian Eno) - January 2012:

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2012 shows:

FEBRUARY 2012

7 Los Angeles, CA @ Jimmy Kimmel Live [discussion] [NEW!]

8 Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia (iHeartRadio) [discussion] [NEW!]

12 Los Angeles, CA @ 54th Grammy Awards, Staples Center [discussion] [NEW!]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

4 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion] [NEW!]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

26 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion] [NEW!]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

3 Charlotte, NC @ Time Warner Cable Arena [discussion] [NEW!]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

The new range of Coldplaying merchanise (unofficial of course to the official shop) has hit our stores, with our biggest range of goods so far. Prices are as low as they can be for a Cafepress shop so more people will be able to afford them. We don't take any profits for the sale of the merchandise as a result. Take a browse in one of the online stores nearest to you: UK | US | Canada | Australia | European (shipping is worldwide, but you can choose what currency to pay in) - simply alter the country dropdown menu at the top of the shop page. [thanks to TracieMorgan and zzz]

Mylo Xyloto will appear on Spotify eventually, says Coldplay manager Dave Holmes

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay‘s manager Dave Holmes has confirmed the band’s latest album Mylo Xyloto will eventually appear on the popular music streaming site Spotify, but insists he remains ‘very concerned’ about the latest medium to offer a free listening service online. He told Business Week, "I am very concerned that Spotify competes with download stores. Like all of Coldplay’s other titles, the new album will be on Spotify eventually." (More discussion on the Spotify/streaming topic in the Coldplay forum now [thanks Coldplaymom])

However, despite Holmes’ reservations, Coldplay’s label EMI has outlined the positive effect which streaming subscriptions are having on the industry. "Services such as Spotify are currently generating more revenue per user to EMI and our artists than the average digital music consumer generated in a world without these services," EMI’s head of business development Mark Piibe has said.

Business Week pointed out that Dave Holmes, along with some other managers, is basing distribution on a 'windowing practice' as in Hollywood where a film release is staggered first to theatres, then to DVD and later on cable channels and streaming sites like Netflix. Mylo Xyloto has proved to be yet another runaway critical success for Coldplay, while the latest single Paradise became the first no.1 of 2012 in UK Singles Chart.

Elsewhere, Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun believes that streaming music technology is simply something that skeptical artists need to get used to, which is only a matter of time. "There were a bunch of artists who wouldn’t sell music on iTunes when that first started,” he reminded Business Week. “Now it’s standard. The same thing will happen with Spotify.”"

Spotify’s supporters turn to data to defend the service. Streaming services are already the recording industry’s second-largest source of revenue after iTunes, and London-based Spotify says it paid about $150 million to rights-holders in 2011, compared with $55 million a year earlier. For every album like Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto, which manager Holmes contends would have sold fewer copies had it also been available on Spotify when it was released, there are many more albums like Drake's Take Care, which was available on Spotify and still went platinum in five weeks. The average iTunes customer spends about $60 a year, according to three senior music executives who asked for anonymity because the figures aren’t public, while a subscriber to Spotify’s top tier of service spends twice as much. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment.

Tweet on 17th November from Jon Hopkins: "Fuck Spotify"

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

4 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

26 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Abu Dhabi review 2: Coldplay's New Year's Eve party 'a resounding success' among revellers

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Despite serpentine queues, heavy traffic and a long wait for those who had chosen to arrive at the venue early, the launch event of Abu Dhabi hosting the 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean Race — and the capital's main New Year's Eve party — was a resounding success, writes Glf News in another review of last weekend's Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi. [Full discussion on this show is at the Coldplay Live forum and more reviews can be found at WikiColdplay now (thanks to all who have contributed to the thread so far!)]

Walking amongst the 20,000-odd concert goers as they crossed from the city to the purpose-built arena, Destination Village, behind Marina Mall, one could see that the crowds had come prepared for cold weather — some, going by Coldplay's previous visit to the UAE, were even prepared for rain. But, the evening was, instead, characterised by the warmth of the group and its entourage.

The audience lapped up the dazzling laser show, the sophisticated giant screen graphics, the glitter, smoke and giant balloons that pervaded the arena. The show was interspersed with short bursts of fireworks. It culminated with another magnificent fireworks display on the Corniche. Listening intently to a mix of Coldplay favourites, some from their most recent album, the lively crowd got into the spirit of the evening thoroughly and swayed on their feet for most part of the concert.

There was much screaming, cheering and applause as this top-notch rock band showed why they are renowned for their hardcore concert-style entertainment. With a digital countdown to the start of 2012, the final song, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall, got under way to tumultuous applause. After the Coldplay members left the stage some 20 minutes into the New Year to celebrate with their families, some of whom are resident in the UAE, those remaining in the audience were treated to a live DJ whose eclectic tunes ensured the party was on until 1am.

"This is one of the most memorable New Year's Eve celebrations," Daniel Gottlieb, a British student visiting his dad in the UAE for Christmas, said. "It was great to be part of an audience with such a diverse cultural background. I celebrated the start of 2012 surrounded by people from every continent, listening to great music. It was really special. Thanks, Abu Dhabi," he said.

Once inside the security barriers, the audience had access to a well-organised array of food and drink outlets. Although the grandstand was several hundred metres back from the stage, visibility was excellent. Flash Entertainment, the concert's promoters, provided Abu Dhabi with an evening to remember — and an excellent start to the New Year.

More photos from Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi (31st December 2011):

Photos via Flickr (Witsandnuts)

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

26 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Abu Dhabi review 1: Coldplay rings in a United Arab Emirates New Year

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay's rain-soaked 2009 performance at Emirates Palace has become part of modern UAE folklore, with drenched Chris Martin crooning Singing in the Rain remaining a lasting image, writes The National in a review of Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi at the weekend. [Full discussion on Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi is at the Coldplay Live forum now (thanks to all who have contributed to the thread so far!)]

This time, however, the group returned to the capital to ring in the New Year and were met by a crowd of more than 20,000 who didn't mind crawling through hours of snail-pace traffic at Corniche Road before going through the greater struggle of getting through concert gates. The quartet waltzed on to the stage to a short burst of fireworks. The celebratory mood was set with the ethereal instrumental opener Mylo Xyloto before launching into pop-static Hurt Like Heaven.

One begins to appreciate the number of hits Coldplay has notched up in their 15-year career when they are now able to perform former concert closer, the shimmering Yellow, as the third song of the set. It also gave the audience their first chance to warm up their singing voices as they drowned out Martin's falsetto during the chorus...

Next up was In My Place, which saw Martin race through a blizzard of star-shaped confetti to the group's second stage; a small space near the edge of the Fan Pit, a barrier that the band could access courtesy of the T-shaped design of the main stage. While the group's old hits such as the piano-led Science and the noxiously sweet Fix You still left many in the crowd a tad misty-eyed, it's the new dancier material from Mylo Xyloto that went down a treat.

Major Minus confirms the suspicion that the group may have been listening to early Kasabian during their recording sessions, as it gave the group's congenial live persona a new dimension: strut.

In the folky Us Against the World - which Martin explains tells "the story of the band" (don't know about that, as NWA these lads are not) - the whole group performed in intimate mode on the second stage, with Martin and drummer Will Champion singing mournfully and movingly.

Charlie Brown was the concert highlight. It is here you see how the band may not be far off from knocking U2 down from their perch as the biggest concert drawcard. Where the latter rely on the chemistry between Bono and The Edge, the trance-ish Charlie Brown is a brilliant display of the band's virtuosity, with each member upping his game.

Led from the back by the group's underrated rhythm section of (the increasingly theatrical) Champion, and understated bassist Guy Berryman, the group soared in the chorus on the back of guitarist Jonny Buckland's signature spidery riffs.

The follow-ups, which began with the propulsive Clocks performed at 10 minutes to midnight, began the anticipation for the New Year's Eve countdown; and the cinematic Paradise was neatly finished with one minute to go. However, for a group who so brilliantly captured the moment in 2009, they seemed uncertain what to do with the midnight countdown, with Martin merely strolling back down the stage as the clock struck midnight.

The anticlimax was underscored by the group seemingly hurrying to finish off the set closer Every Tear Drop Is a Waterfall before brusquely leaving the stage without an encore - not a crime if it had been a regular festival appearance, but for an NYE occasion, it seemed abrupt. Playing a little longer would have been a nice touch in what was otherwise a supremely polished performance.

As for the organisers, perhaps the concert would also trigger a fresh New Year resolution: stick to hosting concerts in the Yas Arena on Yas Island, as the tight two lanes leading up to the Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village on the Corniche Breakwater proved testing for even the happiest of revellers.

More photos from Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi (31st December 2011):

Photos via Flickr (Witsandnuts)

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Abu Dhabi preview 2: Guy Berryman recalls the last visit to UAE (and getting lost in the Emirates Palace)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Like a game of sheikh poker, The Mirror have matched The Sun's Coldplay Abu Dhabi payday estimate of £1m and raised them another £1m as the latest figure banded about for Coldplay to play twelve songs at the New Year's gig in UAE is now £2million. (Think that's a lot? It's only about half of what Jay-Z and Kanye West got for performing at a birthday party for Sheikh Mansour in Dubai recently!)

The Mirror continued: Gwyneth Paltrow would be forgiven for giving Chris Martin the Cold shoulder after the treats he’s had ahead of the band’s £2million New Year’s gig. Coldplay is getting the whopping amount to play just 12 songs at the posh Volvo Ocean Race, as special guests of Sheikh Khalifa – ruler of Abu Dhabi who has personally invited them. But instead of watching Jools Holland with the missus, Chris, 34, has taken up the job with a rider including free VIP tickets to watch tennis ace Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic’s opening games, a £3,000 a night suite at Emirates Palace, and a helicopter to and from the gig. I'm told: "Each band member has his own dressing room with fresh food supplies after every costume change, and new waiters to serve them chicken and vegetable shawarmas." That’s the equivalent of a greasy doner kebab – a million miles away from the macrobiotic nosh Gwynie was once famed for...

[Full discussion on Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi is at the Coldplay Live forum now (thanks Skuze23, Mimixxx, _Tash, Denise & LifeInTechniKarel)]

Meanwhile another article previewing the concert tonight has been published by Gulf News, saying that 'As Coldplay prepare to take on the elements in the UAE again, Chris Martin and Guy Berryman say not much has changed, apart from the thicker skins they've developed'. Read on for their preview...

You heard it here first. More than 50 million records sold, tours selling out in seconds and stadiums full of adoring fans, it's hard to believe the only thing that's changed for the boys from Coldplay is what they eat backstage. "We're getting older, so we can't eat as many Mars bars as we used to be able to," joked lead singer Chris Martin. "Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hob Nobs was our main sustenance in those days," he continued, his voice with an edge of longing. "If you keep that up, you have to waddle or be rolled on stage. Now it's more like celery sticks," he said before immediately taking back the lie just told. "It's definitely less fried chicken."

Bassist Guy Berryman was in full agreement. "It used to be all burger, chips and lager to get us through a show," he said. It was just 15 years ago Coldplay burst onto the scene with the single Shiver. Little did the boys know the rock 'n' roll world of the music industry would mean giving up the good stuff. "You think it's what you need to sustain the high energy levels, but it doesn't last long. As you get older you have to look after yourself," said Berryman, who gave up alcohol three years ago. That, a love of "true music" and the fact they play side by side in the same band is about all the two band mates and friends first appear to have in common.

But while they lead different lives — Martin constantly in the spotlight, partly due to his marriage to actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and Berryman still able to walk the streets relatively undetected — the boys are more alike then even they know. Berryman lives the life Martin wishes he could. He gets to express himself creatively, take home a hefty pay cheque — split equally four ways — but rarely has his life dissected by media outlets the world over. Scheduling interviews for Coldplay's management first means a day of negotiation to find houses willing to interview anyone other than Martin. "Chris acts as a shield for us," said Berryman, gloating a little. "The three other members of Coldplay are quite private and that's the way we like it. Chris gets 90 per cent of the attention but he also has to deal with horrible shit that it brings too."

"It's only because I'm friends with people who are much more talented than me," pipes up Martin. "Life keeps you humble. The internet keeps you humble. No matter how big your head gets, you just have to look on the internet and someone makes it small again for you."

Martin is often described as a slippery fish when it comes to the media, avoiding questions, storming out of interviews are just a few of the incidents reported over the years. Yet a conversation with the Brit boy reveals more an unexpected shy side rather than attitude. He says his energetic antics on stage are down to "no confidence in your songs", and five albums which have all topped the US and UK charts credited to "a lot of luck and good marketing".

Coldplay seem to winningly fuse the tension between not wanting to be one of the best bands in the world and having to settle for being one of the biggest, almost perfectly. "Everything has changed and nothing all at the same time," said Martin. "We're just people having just as much fun, maybe more."

It's true they love what they do, even if they don't love the attention. In 15 years the group has enjoyed just four weeks off in total. "We've never really stopped to look back," said Berryman. "It would be great to take some time soon and live a little. We're always looking ahead at what we're recording, but it just comes. We carry on while we're all happy. I think we're in the best place we've ever been in. Everyone is very happy and content. Maybe soon we'll stop to look back and see what we've achieved."

From the start, Coldplay have been very much a foursome. Martin, the main songwriter, calls it "musical democracy" with each member taking home a 25 per cent share of earnings. Martin, Berryman, 33, from Fife via Canterbury; Buckland, 33, from London via north Wales; and Champion, 33, from Southampton, met in their first year at University College London, in 1996. The current line-up was formalised in late 1997, and in February 1998 they played their first gig in a Camden pub, pausing briefly to take their degrees — Martin, ancient history; Champion, anthropology; and Buckland, maths and astronomy. Berryman had dropped out of engineering. Clearly a match made on long nights over essays and dissertations, but one which has resulted in one of the strongest collections of songs of the past decades. Martin's insecurity is a funny thing. He simply can't fathom a band with him in it currently outsells Radiohead, U2, REM and Oasis. He still seems almost embarrassed by his status as one of the planet's most recognisable rock stars saying, "If anyone's there we'll definitely be greeting people," talking about his upcoming gig in Abu Dhabi on New Year's Eve.

"The UAE is a gig we'll never forget," said Berryman. "I got lost a few times in that Emirates Palace. It was the longest walk back to my room I've ever had. I was shattered," he laughed. Promised sun, sea and sand, Coldplay went down as one of the most memorable concerts in UAE history with sheet lightning, rain and bursts of thunder as the guys belted out Viva la Vida. "They said, ‘If there's one place in the world you don't have to worry about rain, it's Abu Dhabi,'" Martin recalled. "We weren't prepared for it, but I'll also never forget it."

Berryman is a busy boy, always in need of entertaining. Running marathons, restoring First World War aircraft — namely a Tigermoth and Spitfire — he is also learning to fly. "Maybe one day you'll see me buzzing over the UK skies," he laughs.

Rounding off another successful year and after much deliberation Coldplay performed live on the final of this year's UK X Factor, a live final at Wembley Stadium, London. "We ummed and ahhhed about it actually," admitted Berryman. "We couldn't decide if it was cool or not," he continued. "We eventually remembered we lost the ‘cool police' an awful long time ago and went for it. Many of the people who watch X Factor think guitars are some kind of mythical instrument. It was great to show our music to a completely new generation of people."

Being married to Paltrow and somehow becoming a member of the Hollywood super league — Steven Spielberg is now his godfather-in-law — Martin has come a long way in developing a thicker skin. "Eventually, whatever you do you become comfortable with the fact that someone will hate your guts," he said. "That's okay with me now."

The band last played in Abu Dhabi in 2009. The concert was struck by torrential rain, thunder and lightning. During the show, Chris Martin entertained the crowd by singing Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. This latest live performance will reportedly take place at a unique venue. Destination Village has been erected on the Corniche Breakwater ' where the Volvo Ocean Race will take place from December 31. [Article ends]

Photos of Coldplay's stage ahead of tonight's Abu Dhabi New Year's Eve Concert in UAE:

Photos via Twitter

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Abu Dhabi preview 1: Coldplay warm up in the Middle East (plus Chris Martin interview)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay won't be in front of the TV watching Jools Holland on New Years' Eve, they'll be pocketing £1million for their slot at the Volvo Ocean Race venue in Abu Dhabi, writes The Sun this morning. Read on for their story... [Full discussion on Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert in Abu Dhabi is at the Coldplay Live forum now (thanks Skuze23, Mimixxx & _Tash)]

The Sun continued: They were persuaded to play there by the Emirate's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Zayed. Platinum table tickets for the show, including champagne, spirits and car parking passes cost £4,300. Guitarist Jonny Buckland is looking forward to the event after being treated like a prince the last time he visited the country. He said: "I've never stayed anywhere like the hotel they put me in and probably never will again. It made Buckingham Palace look like a two-bed semi."

Meanwhile, Chris Martin has given a one-on-one interview to UAE's The National, as Coldplay returns to Abu Dhabi on New Year's Eve. Read on for their report...

Being the lead singer of arguably the world's most popular band is hardly a suitable occupation for a man who cherishes his privacy, but Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin has never been one to conform to stereotypes. Described by some as moody, by others as aloof and by a few as downright rude, Martin is a long way from being the self-promoting egotist revelling in the spotlight that comes with the global success his band has generated.

That he is married to the Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow makes the mystique surrounding the 33-year-old lyrical genius even more intriguing, yet he offers barely a hint of a bite when he grants The National this rare interview. As Martin and Coldplay prepare to return to Abu Dhabi for a New Year's Eve gig that is certainly this season's hottest ticket, he has been persuaded to become a reluctant participant in the publicity bandwagon promoting Coldplay's addictive new record Mylo Xyloto.

It hardly bodes well when his advisers request that "certain questions" be avoided in our interview, before I am asked to remove my shoes to protect the newly polished wooden floors in Coldplay's rented recording studio in north London. "I have been told there are certain questions I'm not allowed to ask," I inform Martin as we meet, to ascertain whether it is just his minders who are the protective ones, rather than the star himself. "You can ask me what you want," he responds. "I might not answer everything, but whatever you want to know, go for it."

With that, the atmosphere in the room clears a little to allow room for a less formal chat. The character that emerges is one clearly concerned by his image as music's "Mr Bland", as he admits Coldplay's many critics have a persistent habit of getting under his skin. "There have been times when it felt as if we had become people's worst enemies just for producing a song they don't like," says the singer, whose popularity in his own country is often shaded by a host of sceptics.

When your first five albums have topped the charts in the US, the UK and virtually every other music-buying nation in the western world, criticism should matter little. Yet Martin admits it unsettles him. "It takes some getting used to, that kind of pressure, as well as the stories that our record company is relying on us to keep the share price up," he says. "Then you feel the pressure, but you have to get over it. The positives outweigh the negatives in this job big time."

Martin acknowledges that success does matter to him. "I worry about being successful, of course I do. I have two kids now who have made me more driven than ever to be successful, but then you get to the point where you have to give up worrying. There is enough in this world to be miserable about, so enjoy any success you can get."

His mention of his two children, Apple and her little brother Moses, offers an opportunity to probe a subject that we have been told is off limits. While some interviewers find Martin's evasiveness frustrating, his determination to keep his family life separate from his work could be viewed as admirable. "I am famous for Coldplay and being married to someone who is more famous than I will ever be, but the truth is none of us in this band see ourselves as anything other than four guys trying to make music people might like," says the singer, who has used his fame to promote a range of charity projects over the past decade. We don't set our sights too high. It would be great if someone enjoyed our record while they are driving down the road. That is all we can ask for really, and if some people don't like what we do, then I guess they won't buy our record or come to watch us in concert."

Speaking of, his band's forthcoming return to Abu Dhabi prompts memories of their first appearance in 2009 at the Emirates Palace hotel, where the audience was drenched in a surprise downpour. "I didn't think I'd be doing a version of Singin' in the Rain when we did a show in Abu Dhabi," adds Martin, a smile breaking out across his face. "It was weird to be in the desert and the rain lashing down. Weird, but kinda cool I guess. Yeah, Abu Dhabi was cool."

A dry sense of humour evident in quirky and nervy answers to the most polite of questions confirms Martin's status as an icon still struggling to come to terms with the worldwide phenomenon he has become. Young men hailing from his native UK county of Devon tend not to have dreams that end in music-industry domination. Martin and his bandmates have beaten the odds to achieve that and much more.

"Will Coldplay ever be cool? I don't know," he says. "We still have a long way to go before we can be called the best band in the world or be compared to some of the greats of this business. Getting better is a good motivation for us."

Photos from Coldplay's last concert in Abu Dhabi in 2009:

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Reasons to like Coldplay: Calgary Herald offer some festive cheer with a seasonal article

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Offering some festive cheer in the way of a Coldplay article (and almost previewing their forthcoming show on April 18th) are the Calgary Herald, who write this entitled 'Reasons to like Coldplay'. After you've got past the U2 comparisons and the Gwyneth references that invades most Coldplay articles these days, we couldn't think of a better way to say merry Christmas than this. So enjoy the article and... merry Christmas!

In 2008, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin famously told the U.K. newspaper The Daily Express that rock ’n’ roll — Coldplay’s brand of it, anyway — was a young man’s game.

“I’m 31 now and I don’t think that bands should keep going past 33,” he said at the time. Martin is now 34. The same goes for guitarist Jonny Buckland. Bandmates Guy Berryman and Will Champion are both 33 — although we’re not anxiously awaiting news of their imminent retirement. (The October release of Coldplay’s latest album, Mylo Xyloto, and a subsequent tour announcement, would suggest that’s altogether unlikely.)

For the many who picked up Mylo Xyloto this fall — shooting it to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in its first week — they’re no doubt ecstatic that Martin isn’t entirely a man of his word. Had Coldplay entered early retirement, they never would have appeared at London’s iTunes festival this year, for instance — and highlights from that performance were captured in today’s featured download, Coldplay’s iTunes festival: London 2011 EP. (And they certainly wouldn’t be playing a sold-out show in Calgary April 18.)

But that’s just one reason we’re glad Coldplay are here to stay. Here are more. They’re meek, but have inherited the EarthSure, they’re one of the most successful rock bands operating today, with more than 50 million albums sold. Still, there’s a certain aw-shucks quality to Coldplay. It’s something that reminds you they’re still just a bunch of college pals (who do things like sell out Wembley Stadium for kicks). It’s there every time Chris Martin charms the crowd when he rolls with an accidental stumble (in both the musical and physical sense of the word). It’s there whenever they reveal they’re not just self-aware, but self-deprecatingly hilarious. (“We had to settle on being s— Radiohead. We’re called that sometimes, you know,” Martin told a London crowd this November, as per Gigwise.)

They’re the next U2

Sure, music snobs and critics might not fawn over arena rock, but nothing puts us in a better mood faster than raising our arms (and lighters) while shouting out the chorus of a pop song alongside thousands of fellow fans. Following 2008’s war-themed Viva La Vida, on which they set aside their middle-of-the-road melodic soft rock and made a bid for artistic respect with a handful of introspective, difficult (for them, at least) tunes, Coldplay are back to their unabashed, hook-filled roots on their latest album, Mylo Xyloto. From the boisterous opener, Hurts Like Heaven, to the anthemic first single, Paradise, the band has returned to doing what they do best: creating rousing, sentimental tunes that are sure to get you singing along.

They make Gwyneth Paltrow seem almost relatable

Before Gwyneth Paltrow married Martin, she was a chilly Oscar-winning actress and sometime model who holidayed annually with the Spielbergs, was best friends with Madonna and showed occasional pretences at a singing career. Wed to Martin for eight years now, none of that has really changed, although there’s something about the fact she has settled down with a scruffy musician who sings weepy soft-rock ballads — and not, say, one of the two People’s Sexiest Men of the Year she formerly dated — that lends that Nordic exterior a little warmth. A little GOOPiness, perhaps. Paltrow and Martin have successfully kept much of their private lives private, all the better for everyone to imagine that this theory might, in fact, be true.

They keep us awake when they’re on SNL

The boys know how to put on a show — even when they’re competing with Kristen Wiig’s Gilly and Bill Hader’s Stefon. Coldplay have become one of the most reliably solid SNL musical guests in recent memory, performing on the late-night sketch show four times. Their last appearance in November featured an explosive performance of Paradise and Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall, and Martin even joined in on a few comedy skits.

They play well with others

Whether we’re talking their two-album partnership with legendary producer Brian Eno or contributions to recordings by Kanye West — or Nelly Furtado or Ron Sexsmith, etc., etc. — the guys in Coldplay have continuously proven they’re willing collaborators. That’s led to many gems for fans, seemingly disparate pairings that have led to some memorable moments on their C.V. Take Coldplay’s long-standing ties to rapper Jay-Z, for example — a relationship that’s resulted in numerous live appearances (dating back to a collaboration at Jay-Z’s historic 2006 Royal Albert Hall show) as well as recordings (Jay-Z’s Beach Chair, Coldplay’s Lost+ remix). Their latest cross-genre team-up is also a prime example, a Martin/Rihanna duet on Mylo Xyloto single, Princess of China, that made for a fusion of sounds unusual to hear from either act.

Their videos don’t suck

Coldplay has come a long way since a rain-soaked Martin sung into the camera while walking along a dreary beach in Yellow. The band has become known for pushing the envelope with their music videos, whether it’s the trippy reverse-narrative of The Scientist, the two dimensional cut-outs of the band members in Trouble, or the emotional arena singalong that is Fix You. Most important, they still seem to be having fun with the oft-overlooked medium (see Martin’s elephant costume in Paradise). [article ends]

They still thrill audiences the world over

The boys have come a long way from their early touring days. With every ambitious new album, Coldplay have an equally ambitious live show. Whether it’s the light spectacular of X&Y, the multi-coloured civil war uniforms of Viva La Vida, or Mylo Xyloto’s dystopian future, the group has blossomed into a well-oiled live machine in the mould of heroes U2. Martin, in particular, has become one of rock music’s most engaging frontmen, equally comfortable displaying his vulnerability as he is flailing himself across the stage as if possessed by the spectre of rock’s holy ghost. And surely there’s nothing better at the end of any night than the cathartic glow of Fix You sung from the mouths of thousands.

New photos of Coldplay @ Sportpaleis, Antwerp, Belgium (18th December 2011):

Photos courtesy of digg.be

Don't forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting Coldplay tickets or just getting excited for the European & North American 2011 and 2012 shows:

DECEMBER 2011

14 - Paris, France @ Bercy [discussion]

15 - Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena [discussion]

17 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Ahoy [discussion]

18 Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis [discussion]

20 Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle [discussion]

21 Berlin, Germany @ O2 World Arena [discussion]

31 Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Volvo Ocean Race Destination Village [discussion]

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

21 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

28 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

18 Porto, Portugal @ Dragao Stadium [discussion]

20 Madrid, Spain @ Estadio Vicente Calderón [discussion]

22 Nice, France @ Stade Charles Herman / Nikaia [discussion]

24 Turin, Italy @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

26 Zurich, Switzerland @ Letzigrund [discussion]

29 Coventry, UK @ Ricoh Stadium [discussion]

JUNE 2012

1 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

2 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

4 London, UK @ the Emirates Stadium [discussion]

7 Sunderland, UK @ the Stadium of Light [discussion]

9 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

10 Manchester, UK @ the Etihad Stadium [discussion]

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

23 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

6 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

9 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

24 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

27 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

30 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

4 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

8 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

28 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Parken Stadium [discussion]

30 Stockholm, Sweden @ Olympic Stadium [discussion]

SEPTEMBER 2012

2 Paris, France @ Stade de France [discussion]

4 Cologne, Germany @ Rheinenergie Stadium [discussion]

6 The Hague, Netherlands @ Malieveld [discussion]

12 Munich, Germany @ Olympiastadion [discussion]

14 Leipzig, Germany @ Red Bull Stadium [discussion]

16 Prague, Czech Republic @ Slavia Eden Stadium [discussion]

19 Warsaw, Poland @ National Stadium [discussion]

22 Hannover, Germany @ AWD Arena [discussion]

Read also: European Stadium Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the Europe tour)

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the US/Canada tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

London O2 Arena review: Coldplay strip away cynicism with their epic choruses and flashy spectacle

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

It’s easy enough to diss Coldplay: they make music that’s hugely successful (boo!) and not terribly challenging; they’re middle class – a heinous crime in a form of entertainment that’s steeped in notions of “authenticity” (hence the enduring love affair between music critics and the oafish Oasis – hey, they take lots of drugs and they used to steal car radios!); and as people they just seem a bit nice, to the point of dullness, writes The Arts Desk today, in a 4/5 star review of Coldplay's show at the O2 Arena in London last night. Read on for the rest of the review and some photos...

I’ve done the dissing thing myself often enough: there’s that way of saying, “Coldplay” that sounds both slightly sneery and slightly shamefaced, in the same way that an aficionado of organic slow food might pronounce “Nando’s”.

So, here goes: actually, tonight, at the O2 Arena, I had a blast. It wasn’t the most earth-shattering gig I’ve seen, and the music was mostly pretty one-dimensional, but when there are 18,000 people singing along to one of Coldplay’s big soaring choruses and there’s all manner of spectacular stuff going on, the effect is, well, tingly. Much has been made by some critics of the way Coldplay seem to deliberately engineer their songs specifically so that they can be sung along to, so that they will shimmer around the walls of arenas such as the O2 (and, next summer, the nation’s football stadiums). Is this a bad thing?

It’s like saying that James Brown deliberately engineered his music so that people would dance the mashed potato to it. But for me the clincher was the wristband thing. Let me explain. Audience members were issued with a special wristband before the show; then, when the band hit the stage to the blaring theme from Back to the Future and struck up the first chords of “Hurts Like Heaven” from this year’s Mylo Xyloto album, someone backstage pushed a remote-control button and suddenly each one of those 18,000 wristbands was flashing in all kinds of colours. Remember the days when people flourished fag-lighters during rock anthems? It was like that, except a million times better. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Once the excitement of that first burst of energy had worn off, the first half an hour was not that great; “Yellow”, delivered surprisingly early in the set, was lovely, but the pace slipped somewhat after that. But then came the run-in, the home straight, the big choruses and the singalong stuff: “Clocks”, “Viva La Vida”, “Fix You”, “Charlie Brown”: in the face of such an onslaught, resistance was futile. And there’s no sign that they’re running out of choruses: one of the night’s finest, “Paradise”, from the new album, was still being sung by the crowd as they funnelled into the tube station after the show. Also, presumably in the full knowledge that Coldplay are not the most exciting band to look at – Chris Martin was bouncy and charismatic, but the other three were just that; the other three – this show’s creators have invested heavily in visuals.

For virtually every song, there was something new to look at: giant balloons descended from the rafters, plumes of confetti shot into the air, lasers twitched, the band played on a satellite stage, the lighting rig swayed and shifted, video screens flickered. And then there were those those wristbands. When they lit up and the audience waved their hands in the air, the O2 became a constellation of glowing, twinkling humanity. All cynicism was stripped away.

Read also: [9-Dec-2011] Coldplay @ O2 Arena, London, UK (forum discussion - reviews/pictures/videos start around page 39)

Photos from Coldplay at O2 Arena, London (9th December 2011):

Photos courtesy of Jason-DeBord at Original Prop blog.

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Mylo Xyloto review 19: New album completes broad spectrum of music, colours and emotions

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Our next Mylo Xyloto on this Friday comes from The Harbinger - part of the My High School Journalism website. The Harbinger is based at Miami Lakes Educational Center, Miami Lakes, FL. They note that even when Coldplay have clearly changed their sound, there are still old-school Coldplay in MX with songs such as Charlie Brown and UFO. But has their risky change of direction paid off? Find out below...

Ever since the release of Parachutes in 2000, Coldplay and its front man, Chris Martin, have never failed to impress and captivate. Known mostly by their characteristic piano and acoustic guitar - as well as powerful and emotional lyrics - Coldplay truly made a name for themselves with the 2003 release of the single “Clocks.” This single, and its proceeding album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, marked Coldplay as the alternative powerhouse to beat...

Since then, Coldplay has released a steady stream of highly successful and breathtaking albums, each one notably unique from the last. In this way, the UK band has made a gradual shift from their original sound to create a whole new name for themselves, diversifying and strengthening their music along the way. Mylo Xyloto is the culmination of this diversification. When the album was first released this past October, it was greeted by a mixture of reactions. Excitement for a new Coldplay album was met by a collective eye-brow raising at its first single, “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall.” “Is this really Coldplay?” people wondered. “What happened to them?”

Those who were previously comforted by Coldplay’s melodic acoustic vibes were shocked and even somewhat appalled at hearing a new techno-pop sound accompanied by the sudden – but not overdone – use of synthesizers. But be still, little Coldplay-loving hearts. The old Coldplay is still there; songs like “Charlie Brown” and “U.F.O” can attest to that.

Even “Princess of China,” which features Rihanna and was snapped up by all the popular radio stations, hearkens to Coldplay’s long-standing love of all things Oriental. This was also seen in 2008 with the release of Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, which included “Strawberry Swing” and “Lovers in Japan,” both of which were inspired by Asian culture and themes.

Nonetheless, Mylo Xyloto is a far cry from Coldplay’s originally more melancholic sound, what with songs like “Hurts Like Heaven,” which fits more into a Passion Pit album than among Coldplay’s ranks. Of course, this isn’t to say that this change is a bad thing; the smartest move for a band like Coldplay – which is rounding on 12 years in the spotlight and still massively popular – to remain as big as it is in the music world is to play the field and experiment with new sounds. And boy is it working.

Coldplay, no less than a veteran band in the alternative music industry, can now be stepped back from and analyzed at a distance. Any Coldplay buff will now be able see the totality of Coldplay’s efforts.

In a matter of 5 studio-released albums, they have created a broad spectrum of music, colors, and emotions. True masters of their art, Coldplay have managed to drastically alter their sound – risky, no doubt – and not only maintain a cult following, but also create consistently fantastic music, album after album. [Article Ends]

Dont' forget to check out your tour discussion thread if you are getting tickets for the North American 2012 shows:

APRIL 2012

17 Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place [discussion]

18 Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome [discussion]

20 Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena [discussion]

24 Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena [discussion]

25 Seattle, WA @ KeyArena [discussion]

27 San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion At San Jose [discussion]

MAY 2012

1 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl [discussion]

JUNE 2012

22 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center [discussion]

25 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center [discussion]

28 Tampa, FL @ St. Pete Times Forum [discussion]

29 Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena [discussion]

JULY 2012

2 Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena [discussion]

5 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center [discussion]

8 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center [discussion]

23 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre [discussion]

26 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre [discussion]

29 Boston, MA @ TD Garden [discussion]

AUGUST 2012

3 East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center [discussion]

7 Chicago, IL @ United Center [discussion]

11 St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center [discussion]

Read also: North America Tour announced! (general discussion thread for the tour)

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Coldplay and Kids Company featured in new Guardian article ahead of next week's Under 1 Roof concert

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

They might be one of the world's biggest bands but, for four years, Coldplay have been keeping a secret. The band have been the biggest secret benefactors of Kids Company, the children's charity working with vulnerable young people in some of the most deprived areas of London, writes The Guardian in a great article previewing the Under 1 Roof concert taking place on 10th December. Read on for the rest of the article... [More discussion on this article is at the Coldplay forum now (thanks _Tash)]

Now the band, which has donated millions of pounds to the charity, have decided to go public. They have organised Under 1 Roof, a benefit gig next Saturday at the O2 Arena in London, at which they will headline. Chris Martin designed the logo and persuaded celebrity friends to take part, including Tinie Tempah, Emeli Sandé, Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who will appear as Alan Partridge.

"Kids Company is a phenomenal organisation that is very close to our hearts," said Martin. "For a long time we were saving up to try to open a youth project, to help kids who didn't have much help, but that was as vague as it sounds. We went to the Prince's Trust for advice and they said we could do our own thing and it would be shit – or we could go see Camila [batmanghelidjh, founder and Kids Company CEO].

"After one meeting, we knew that was where we wanted to put our money. We had not thought past the Ping-Pong table aspect of creating a youth centre but watching Kids Company in action we suddenly realised, "oh right, it's actually about life skills, parenting, taking kids to the dentist" – all those things we took for granted but which Kids Company provides. It was very moving. We were blown away by it."

Martin and his band members used the money they had saved over 10 years to fund the creation of the Kids Company's Tree House centre in north London. They have given the organisation a substantial annual, no-strings donation every year since: in 2009 alone they donated £1m. In addition, they are frequent visitors to the charity's various centres: in the spring the band played a private concert for the children, encouraging them to take part. Martin has shared mealtimes with the children, played basketball with them and donated a piano. He admits, however, a certain ambivalence at having ended his private support. "We wanted to put on a concert for awareness as well as fundraising. But the great thing about doing it privately was not having to talk to anyone about it," he said. "Eventually people find these things out but … when entertainers become public supporters of charities it's dangerous territory. You have to be careful about talking expertly about something you're not an expert on."

"It's a good thing too," he added, naming George Clooney as a celebrity who has successfully exploited his fame to achieve social good. "As long as people do it for the right reason and believe in what they're promoting, it's absolutely great. We will keep supporting Kids Company for as long as we can afford it. It's no more deep than wanting to do something nice but it's one reason that the state of the music industry is so worrying for us: we want to keep being involved," he added.

Batmanghelidjh praised the band's under-the-radar support: "The support Coldplay have given us over the years has been contrary to the dangerous trends emerging around celebrity involvement in charities," she said. "There is a pay-by-results culture developing, where philanthropists dictate the outcome of their donations."

Chesney was 10 when, last spring, she sang Silent Night to Coldplay at an impromptu concert they gave at one of the centres. The experience, she says, had a lasting impact. "They were so simple and so comforting, that it made me realise I didn't need money or jewels to be happy," she said. "They were so normal that I realised I should do stuff with my life that makes me fulfilled, like they are."

Latisha, 11, agreed. "They helped me write a song about anger. Chris Martin said he liked the way I expressed my feelings, then showed me the tattoos of his children's name on his wrist. They were so normal that I realised I could be a success, even though I was just normal too."

New photos of Chris Martin leaving BBC Studios in London following interview on Steve Wright's Radio 2 show (2nd December 2011): [thanks _Tash]

Q Magazine (Q306) article transcript - Chris Martin invites Q to The Bakery for another chat

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

It seems that Q Magazine's latest article on Coldplay is a hot topic at the moment, just look at all the sub-headlines that are sprouting up all over the internet because of its publication. Instead of reading those, we've transcribed the full interview for you, so read it in it's entirity and make up your own headlines. Enjoy...!

The neutral observer of any big awards ceremony will notice that how late an artist arrives is directly proportional to their fame. On the Monday afternoon of the Q Awards 2011, Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland and Guy Berryman (Will Champion has a family emergency) materialise on the red carpet just 10 minutes before the ceremony begins. But before they enter the room containing the inner circle of photographers, Berryman is briefly detained so they have to wait in a small antechamber. Just as they're about to make their entrance, the seas part and U2 walk past.

Bono doesn't even notice Martin until he says, in a comically terrible Irish accent, "I loike your band. I do." Bono smiles and sweeps a regal hand. "One day all this could be yours." U2 greet the photographers first. Coldplay follow...

Bono's response was a joke but, in truth, all this is already Coldplay's. While U2 are in a period of self-doubt following No Line On The Horizon, Coldplay defy gravity with each album. Released the day of the awards, Mylo Xyloto will sell by the bucketload and top charts worldwide. And though U2 have just concluded a record-breaking world tour, it was Coldplay who won the cordial battle of the bands at Glastonbury this summer.

It's often said that in an atomised culture pop music has no centre anymore but if there is a point where the Venn circles intersect then that's where Coldplay reside. They might be the last of the communal rock bands. Who else is courted by Jay-Z and Kanye West and covered by the Pet Shop Boys? Who else praises Radiohead and Take That with equal enthusiasm? Who else would put a duet with Rihanna on the same album that samples both Sigur Ros and Brian May?

In the press suite after accepting their award for Best Act In The World Today, Martin thanks Brian May for the sample and discusses the etiquette of meeting other musicians. "You recognise someone but you don't know their name," frets May. ("There's a funny heirarchy about who loiters for who," Martin explains later. "I approach far more people than approach me.")

Coldplay headline Lollapalooza 2011 on August 5, 2011 in Chicago. (Photo: Cambria Harkey)

Then there's a three-way summit with Noel Gallagher and Bono followed by a brief meeting with Tinie Tempah about a possible collaboration. At the end of the ceremony Martin can be found deep in conversation with Wretch 32 and Example. But the most surprising encounter is with Tom Meighan from Kasabian who greets Martin with a cheerful holler: "I love your band!"

"Oh," says a surprised Martin. "I thought you hated us."

"Who said that?" says Meighan, aghast. "It's a lie. I've always loved your fucking band. Straight, man." He gives Martin a manful squeeze. "I love you. We all love you."

"You're catching me at quite an interesting time because I'm a bit confused today," says Chris Martin, folding himself onto a sofa in the control room of Coldplay's North London studio, The Bakery. He is tall and broad-shouldered in an expensive-looking black and white hoodie and blue combat trousers adorned with a poppy pin. His face is still boyish, lit up by a series of grins, ranging from nervously reflexive to genuinely delighted, but sometimes pulled in peculiar directions. He explains he has a pain in his right ear from the MTV European Music Awards in Belfast two nights ago. On the red carpet he saw two fans singing new single Paradise and hugged both of them, only for one to shriek directly into his ear: a very pop-star injury.

On the wall near his head hangs a whiteboard. Not so long ago it was a riot of song titles and potential album names. Now it's blank but for the final running order of Mylo Xyloto and a sribbled reminder to "Sort our recycling policy in the studio." Q visited Martin here over the summer to talk about his favourite records for the 25th anniversary issue and he seemed glad of the interruption. "This is fun," he said. "I thought we were going to have to talk about our album and I'm not comfortable enough to do that yet."

As Will Champion explains: "One of the most important weapons in our armoury is worry." Every album leaves Martin so creatively exhausted that he wonders if he'll ever be able to do it again, hence the "Coldplay to quit?" news stories. "It really does always feel like that," he says, blue eyes widening. "Each album is a statement about how I feel about life. I'm trying to work out everything in each album so by the time it's finished I don't have anything left."

Their recent promo odyssey has been bewildering in a different way. At one point they visited four continents in six days, flying from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town to London. In each location, says Martin, he can bank on being asked the same three questions. The first is: what does Mylo Xyloto mean? "Between us we have about 17 answers. I have about 12 minutes every day where I think, That's ridiculous. Why did you call an album that? Then the other 23 hours or so I'm like, Oh Yeah, I know why but I still can't explain it."

The next is about Gwyneth Paltrow. "They always leave it till the end. I just say what I always say, she's incredible but I'm not very good at talking about it." Finally, there's the one about whether they consider themselves the biggest band in the world. That one's easy: "No."

"Ridiculous as it sounds, I still feel like we're trying to make it," he says. Equally strangely, he doesn't feel famous. "I think being married to someone much more famous makes me feel not famous at all." Anyway, he says, fame isn't what it used to be. "When I first met Bono I thought, wow this is like an alien speaking to me. Whereas everyone's been humanised now."

Even though size has served Coldplay well - their songs never sound better than when they're being sung by thousands of people at Glastonbury - he doesn't see it as a worthwhile goal.

"Pfffrrt," he sighs. "It matters to me whether we get some singalongs - I love that more than anything. But as popular as you are you're also unpopular so it just levels out at nothing. If you're going to respond to the people who think you're special then you're going to have to respond to the people who think you're unspecial."

When Q first met Martin, back in 2000, he was reeling from the realisation that some people hated, really hated, the band he had formed with three friends from university. The idea had never struck him before. "At that point we felt it's music, it's not a facist regime. I don't know how angry you can get about it. We had to learn the hard way."

Now he doesn't care, or at least not as much as he did. "I'm so grateful for the people who do like us that I don't really give a toss about the ones that don't. Of course you get factions in music, but that's such a luxury. If you can spend your day blogging about why Coldplay are shit then your life is amazing. you don't have to worry about where your food is coming from or if someone's going to bomb your house or if there's a typhoon coming."

In the early days, Martin was candid about being an accountant's son from Devon who didn't lose his virginity until he was 22. Such honesty was ultimately liberating because there is no pretence. Unlike some rock stars he doesn't have a persona to present to the world, but then that's because he would never describe himself as a rock star. "You can't set yourself up as an otherworldly thing because everybody knows you're not. We've never been cool, but we have some songs that some people really like and we wrote them and anyone who says we didn't can fucking... lick my kneecaps. Because that's bollocks."

The threatened kneecap-licking is a reference to the plagiarism charges levelled at Viva la Vida three years ago. A judge dismissed Joe Satriani lawsuit but this, says Martin, is the only incident in Coldplay's blessed career that really hurts. "I don't care about the people who hate us or say we've ruined music. But if someone accuses you of something and you didn't do it, I fucking hate that."

It especially bothered him because he considers Viva la Vida possibly the best song he's written. It also captures best the extremes of his worldview: a euphoric song about abject defeat. "Even at my most confident, that was taken away by people saying we didn't write it. So I expect disaster at every moment. Every moment there isn't a disaster I'm very happy."

Are your emotions polarised? Everything's either brilliant or calamatous?

"Yes, there's only two switches."

No middle ground where it's just alright?

"No, I don't do it's alright."

Have you always been like that?

"Yes. I either have best friends or no friends. I either eat shitloads of chocolate or no chocolate. I either write the best song or the worst song."

What did people make of you at your boarding school, Sherbourne?

"Even at school I was probably quite divisive. Some people thought I was very talented and some people thought I was the biggest tosser on Earth. It's funny because I thought once I left school I'd made it through that and then I realised it's just a microcosm of life. It's just like a big playground. It was good preparation."

Can your mood change the energy in a room?

"you'll have to ask everyone else."

I asked Will and he said Yes.

"[Laughs] Well, there you go. But I'm trying nowadays to put everything into perspective. My brother is in Afghanistan. Since he joined the army I'm like, Well, anything 'disastrous' in a band is not the same as in other spheres so shut the fuck up."

Success often gives people a dimmer view of the world because they start to distrust people's motives. Has that happened to you?

"Do I have a dimmer view of the world? No, probably a broader view of the extremes. I've been in more places, seen more stuff. I feel like there's a lot of great things and great people so I have a brighter view of them but I have a dimmer view of the arseholes, some of whom we've met."

Is it true you see a therapist once before each album comes out?

"[Laughs] No, a bit more than that. I have a lot of trouble sleeping. It's to do with that and what to take and what not to take."

What happens in your dreams about Coldplay?

"I'll give you a classic one I had last night. We were playing Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall on Letterman and I was playing in a different key to everyone else and David Letterman came on and said, Can you stop? This is not very good. Can you do the other song? And then we start doing the other one and my shoe falls off. It always goes a bit surreal after that but it always starts with playing a concert and there's some insurmountable problem. I have many more nightmares than dreams: probably nine to one. Real life is much better."

Chris Martin at Glastonbury Festival on June 25, 2011. (Photo: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage)

When he was at the MTV awards, Chris Martin realised he was older than he felt: "I still feel in pretty good shape but I also could have fathered Justin Beiber. Not actually, because girls weren't interested in me at that time but biologically it would have been possible. But on the other hand Queen were playing. I could be Brian May's son."

Even before Coldplay's first EP in 1998 they talked about how bands stayed together. "We dealt with the insecurities very early," says Will Champion. "Decision-making and money: all the stuff that tends to pull back apart if you don't get it right. It's a four-way male relationship and it requires constant maintenance."

Martin would argue that it's a five-way relationship. His schoolfriend Phil Harvey is listed as a band member on every album except X&Y. That was the record where Harvey, suffering from stress, resigned as Coldplay's manager and disappeared from the band's circle before returning as informal creative advisor. It is also the record they like least, reinforcing a lesson they learned from studying U2 and Radiohead.

"Those are the two you can hold up and say, well, look at where they've got to and they've stayed the same five people [he's counting U2 manager Paul McGuinness]. It's as much admiration for that as for their music. A band is a magic thing. Nobody really. knows how it works but it does. None of us in our band have as much talent as Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga but we have this unique chemistry."

Brian Eno is credited with strengthening that chemistry. Eno produced Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. but his role this time is more nebulous according to Champion: "keyboard player, general noise-maker, encourager, agent provocateur - someone to keep us on our toes." He encouraged Coldplay to sing in unison and play together in a circle. That's how Mylo Xyloto began: as an intimate acoustic record. "If one of us is down about something generally it can be resolved by grabbing some guitars and playing a Smiths song," says Champion. "That's the reason we're in a band because that's where it all makes sense, It's so easy to get lost in all of the stuff that surrounds it."

But their decision to democracy can be hard-going. Every offer is debated at length. "Sometimes the things that you're offered split the band and that always means you end up not doing them," says Chris. "I think half of us would love to play The X Factor and half of us say that's a very bad idea."

Which half are you in?

"I can't tell you that." But then he says: "Me and Phil and Jonny would probably do anything."

The same process applies to the songwriting where every song Martin brings in has to complete an obstacle course of different opinions: band members, producers, family, friends. Champion pooh-poohed Clocks when he first heard it. "But only for an hour," says Martin. "He didn't go on one of his long rants. He can be convinced whereas if Guys says he doesn't like something he never will."

Are you always writing melodies in your head?

"Yes. All the time. That's my way of making sense of the day and the world. Between here and home I tend to get lots. Everybody does, don't they?"

No, Chris, I don't think they do.

"Well, there you go," he says, as if it has never occurred to him before. "It's just something I've been given, I guess."

When you're having a bad day do the others know how to help?

"Yes, they do. They're very good friends to me because they know that as the singer, especially because I'm married to Gwyneth, I get eight times as much media time as them. They know how much I need them. I just couldn't do it on my own."

Would you like to be a solo artist?

"I'd just be terrible. I don't think I could even get a gig in Butlin's and I've been to Butlin's. I think me and my keyboard would be outside Woolworth's most days, getting shouted at."

Bono calls Martin as good a melodist as Paul McCartney. Although his tastes are broad, the songs he raves about, from Somewhere Over The Rainbow to Someone Like You, are instant and effortless, as if they have been plucked out of the air rather than composed. "My memory has always been shit except for music," he says. "I read a book and if there's words I like I'll write them down but I can't remember what happened in it. It's the same with stuff I learned at school.But I have a very good memory for melodies. Which comes in handy."

The lyrics he struggles with (many, he says, are stream-of-consciousness) but the tunes just come to him. All of his favourite songs, whether The Scientist or Fix You or Viva La Vida, have emerged almost fully-formed though it doesn't always work. A few years ago a song arrived in a dream and he excitedly took it to David Bowie. "He said, [laughs] I'm really sorry but it's not your best. He was very kind about it. I was like, You know what? You're probably right. It might have been written by sleeping pills so I wasn't too personally offended."

Jay-Z, Chris Martin, and Kanye West perform in Las Vegas on December 31, 2010. (Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)

Martin's mother works as a music therapist with disabled children and though he winces at the comparison he has similar faith in the power of a melody - beyond the words or the production or what the singer is wearing - to affect all. He was never tribal about music at school and he respects that lack of factionalism in others, like Jay-Z. "When Jay first said, I like your band I was like, What the fuck are you talking about? No, you don't. Then I realised he doesn't bring any baggage to it. I like your songs - it was as simple as that."

The friendship between the middle-class Englishman and the Brooklyn rap mogul is one of the stranger bonds in pop. "Yes, it is hilarious," Martin admits. "What's the common denominator? Well, underneath he probably feels a bit like me and I probably feel a bit like him."

There's a noise in the rehearsal room next door and Martin excuses himself. A moment later he shouts over, "Come and say hi!" Q pops in and there they are: the hard-to-talk-about Gwyneth Paltrow and the couple's two children, Apple and Moses, both blond and ebullient with transatlantic accents. "He was asking me how me and Jay could be friends when he's so confident and I'm not," says Martin, hoisting Apple onto his shoulder. "They balance each other out," says the unflappable Paltrow. "Chris and I are like Jay and Beyonce: two paranoid ironists and two calm, grounded people."

After a quick catch-up ("I met Taio Cruz," he tells Apple. "I told him you liked Dynamite"), the family departs and Chris bounds back to the couch. "There you go," he says, beaming. " You've got your answer. We balance each other out."

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Mylo Xyloto review 17: MX belongs among the stars (Q Magazine's perfect 5/5 rating)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Our next Mylo Xyloto review is one we've been waiting for for some time. It comes from Q Magazine (print-only), who have given the new album a perfect 5/5 stars, announcing that Britain's biggest band sound more alive than ever, and the fifth album will sustain Coldplay's imperial position for a long time to come. Read on for their top-notch review and scans...

On July 8th, 2011, the final historic flight of Nasa's space shuttle program scorched a hole through the clouds on its way to the International Space Station orbiting some 200-odd miles above our planet. The following morning, as requested by pilot Doug Hurley, the crew were awoken by Coldplay's Viva la Vida broadcast by Mission Control. (Houston, we have a chorus.) And lo, the band who could, if they wished, statistically claim to being "the biggest in the world" based on that song's parent album's ranking as the most "paid-for downloaded" LP of all time, finally transcended mortal concerns, now echoing in a tin can suspended above our insignificant pale blue dot among an incomprehensively vast cosmos, momentarily the biggest band both of this world and beyond it...

There really is no overstating, denying or ignoring how humongous Coldplay have become. Globally, they've sold more than 50 million albums, which is tough bananas for those clinging to last decade's long-redundant cliche that Coldplay are criminally boring bastards belching out mediocre snore-pop as part of an evil conspiracy to keep the ignorant masses in a permanent state of shelf-stacking drudgery. (That's right, cynics, Coldplay are so radioactively dull they attract Sturmbannfuhrers of Straightsville as Brian Eno and Jay-Z). Because, even if, just supposing, it all ended tomorrow, Coldplay's permanent plinth has already been erected as one of the most successful guitar bands, British or otherwise, in pop history.

Mylo Xyloto - a "deliberately" nonsensical title, if not one letter over the worst contestant's choice in the history of Countdown -suggests it isn't going to end tomorrow. Or next week, or next year, or in the next five years. Whether it's statistically possible for Coldplay to get any bigger than they are now, (perhaps only in billion-grossing touring turns, lagging behind long-toothed enormodome veterans U2 and The Rolling Stones), their fifth album will, at the bare minimum, safely sustain their imperial position for a long time to come. Because the reasons Coldplay are already beloved by millions - instantly memorable tunes dappled with Technicolor, plain words delivered in such a way as to rattle the human extremes of love and loss - are here sharpened to higher definition than ever before. If in the past Coldplay have been misconstrued, possibly even by themselves, as at Tesco-friendly Radiohead, from the opening "can you hear the drums, Fernando?" skirl of the title "track" (one of three short connecting instrumentals), Mylo Xyloto hammers home the punchline that Coldplay have for some time been the new ABBA: the People's band for whom notions of rock'n'roll or indie "cool" no longer apply.

Running with the euphoric Baton crafted by Viva la Vida (the song), studio boffins Eno and Markus Dravs have spared nothing here in the way of sonic stardust. Every line from Chris Martin, the erstwhile vicar of pop, purrs with Confucian wisdom (even when his voice ribbets to comical Lee Martin Wandrin' Star depths on the stirring lover' hymn Us Against The World). The trustworthy piano/guitar axis of "Oldplay" here budges up for effervescent synths and Disney strings spiralling ever heavenwards, the closing Up With The Birds softly cooing like the stratosphere made music. Johnny Buckland's riffs twinkle and flare like meteor showers, never giddier than the skipping instrumental hook of the addictive Charlie Brown. And the wealth of phones-aloft singalong "woah-oh" choruses on hand - notably current single Paradise (a-made-for-TV trophy-raising/"you've got four yes's" mega-hit) and the thumping Rhianna-assisted Princess of China (as world-beating a collaboration as Eminem's Love The Way You Lie) - teeters on the cusp of absurd.

These are the delirious fireworks that first dazzle, but only because of the clarity and deceptive simplicity of the songwriting beneath. Martin's insistence that Mylo Xyloto is a "concept album" carries some narrative weight, from the resilient angst of the opening '80s Bratpack rocker Hurts Like Heaven via the fighting spirit of Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall to the penultimate crescendo-heavy survivor's anthem Don't Let It Break Your Heart. Yet the best of these are self-contained gems; the electric Gypsy raggle-taggle of Major Minus (Buckland's trebly solo out-edging The Edge), even the exquisite Tim Hardin-esque acoustic breather UFO. The number one jaw-clunker, though, is Up In Flames. As great a tune as they've ever written, it hovers on a lushly melancholic plain between Elton John's Song For Guy and the heart-collapsing falsetto of Bon Iver, the ultimate "it's over" ballad conjuring divine beauty from diabolical bereavement.

Against the kind of commercial expectation few bands are ever privileged to suffer, the 21st-century ABBA have delivered an album, which in its flawless magic, its overwhelming melodic might, could well be the work future generations champion as Coldplay's touchstone. With NASA's space shuttle program now retired it's unlikely their sound will again be vibrating in low orbit any time soon. But listening to Mylo Xyloto highlights what a sorry loss that is.

Music this uplifting, this inspirational, belongs among the stars.

Read also: Q MAGAZINE Rates Mylo Xyloto 5/5 Stars (full-sized scans now in first post)

Mylo Xyloto review 16: Why sometimes pop is just pop (PJ Media)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

In continuation of our features involving less mainstream reviews of Coldplay's new album Mylo Xyloto, our next one comes from PJ Media, a lifestyle blog from Los Angeles. With much more detailed review than we would expect of a new album over a month after its release, PJ Media not only casts their eye over the new songs, the review features why Coldplay will continue to craft addictive 'pop confections' long after their critics have put down their pens. Read on for their review...

Expectations can be a beast in the world of music criticism. Bands can blow up overnight thanks to blog reviews, even when they don’t have an album to promote – the live shows are that good. Then, when the album drops and it isn’t as magnificent as people expected, the band is dropped like a hot potato, while sites like Pitchfork leap to the next flavor of the week they can’t help hyping to death.

The dreaded sophomore slump isn’t so much named for a significant drop in quality or artistic vision, but rather for the frequent sales drop-off when fans don’t like a band’s second album as much as the one they worshiped maybe a year prior. Worse is the fate doled out to bands who initially sound like another popular act; they initially get a benefit from that comparison, only to have fans turn on them when their music either doesn’t follow closely enough in the footsteps of the iconic act, or conversely fails by following too closely with the original...

Such has been the fate of Coldplay, a band which clearly can’t win for losing.

If you were to spend too much time reading what the majority of the criticsphere has to say about Mylo Xyloto, the latest Coldplay album, you’d have to wonder if this one collection of songs happened to be the worst thing to happen to music since Kevin Federline’s rap abortion. “It’s a bit uplifting, but ultimately insipid,” was the write-up they received in the UK’s Observer, while the Guardian referred to the album as “standard issue Coldplay” in the perjorative, as though a band’s fifth album sounding like anything recorded prior to its release is somehow a brutal disservice to all appropriately cultured music fans.

It’s almost been a competition to see who can damn the album with the faintest praise. You see, what’s worse than a sophomore slump is the brutal crash to earth which comes when a band previously christened as a “hipster alternative to pop” decides to continue recording pop music long after the hipsters have decided to throw said band to the dogs.

I, for one, was never a particularly huge fan of Coldplay. “Yellow,” off their debut Parachutes, bored me to tears with its repetition and was doomed by radio overplay. And A Rush of Blood to the Head, the band’s sophomore effort, featured solid songs but frequently seemed to this critic as though the band was trying too hard to come up with songs to match what radio wanted from a follow-up to Parachutes. That, and the band was fighting to avoid becoming overly pretentious. While many have always lumped them in with the 90s brit-pop of Oasis and the rousing stadium rock of U2, with others clamoring for Chris Martin to follow in Thom Yorke’s avant-garde footsteps, the band was merely at the time trying to find its own voice and follow its own path.

Over the last eight or nine years, however, the band has grown on me. They’ve proven to be willing to push the envelope and try experiments with style, while sticking primarily to the world of pop music. While Radiohead saw a chance to go mainstream with the uber-success of OK Computer and then turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction, choosing to avoid pop at all costs, Coldplay wants to be the pop band everyone likes, with hooks that stick in your head and won’t leave, like tiny musical viruses. They finally found songs that led in that direction on Viva La Vida, which had a title signaling pretension even as the music was more mainstream than ever: I dare you to keep the tribal hook that is “Lost!” out of your head once it sneaks in.

After reading all the negative reviews for Mylo Xyloto, an album which I will admit is saddled by one of the most ridiculous titles ever, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that really what the band chooses to present here is a rational follow-up to Viva La Vida. Mylo Xyloto doesn’t stand up to a great deal of lyrical scrutiny, which is why so many critics have slashed at Martin’s throat by going after his lyrical failings.

But where the album shines is from a pure pop standpoint. “Hurts Like Heaven” is mindlessly catchy in a way few songs have been so far in 2011 – even when you hear yourself singing along to a line as inane as “You use your heart as a weapon but it hurts like heaven,” you’ve got to marvel at the tunefulness of the underlying melody, a melody which segues seamlessly into “Paradise,” the band’s seeming follow-up to “Lost!” which opens with strings and synths piling slowly upon each other until half a minute when the dark crunchy bass end comes into play. “She expected the world but it flew away from her reach,” Martin sings. “She ran away in her sleep into paradise!” The stuttering falsetto chorus – “Para-para-para-paradise!” — coupled with Martin’s “Oooh oooh oooh” harmonizing – turns the song into a barnstormer. If you can’t find something fun in this listening experience, you’re so jaded I don’t know that I want to know you.

The rest of the album is a joy to hear because it builds as a logical percussion. The frantic desperation of “Charlie Brown” pumps up the energy just in time to drop off completely into the somber simplicity of “Us Against The World” (as apt a title as any on the album), which allows Martin to play with his more acoustic side, a la X&Y’s “Til Kingdom Come.”

“I just want to be there when the lightning strikes and the saints go marching in,” Martin sings, and it’s his mantra. Coldplay is here to be the world’s pop band even if the world isn’t ready to stand up to the hipsters and admit it wants a pop band.

We all say we want experimentation, raw creativity, explosions of avant-garde pretentiousness. But when push comes to shove, Coldplay will be there when we’re ready for something which strips all that away, leaving nothing but the pure, comforting essence of pop. It’s telling that “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall,” the band’s choice for lead single, is far from the most exceptional track on the album.

It comes down to expectations. If you see Coldplay as Radiohead-lite, you’ve already decided their music is something less than that of a band you already revere. As for the “it’s so sickly sweet” mantra, Coldplay’s music has always been something of an aural diabetic’s enemy … if you can’t tolerate sugary pop music, you’ve been coming to the wrong band and simply aren’t going to be able to judge the album for what it’s really offering. Mylo Xyloto doesn’t so much take Coldplay in new directions as it works to cement the band in the eyes of its fans as one firmly planted in the world of pop. Any experimentation which is to be done will be performed with the aim of pushing their music more fully into the world of pop.

In the end there’s the “relevance” debate. I, for one, don’t feel a band’s relevance depends on a willingness to completely reinvent its sound album to album. Coldplay succeeds in the same vein as journeymen pop acts like Train – when “Hey Soul Sister” became a smash hit this year, it wasn’t because Train sold its soul for a pop hit. They simply kept making albums the way they’d done since Train hit shelves in 1999, and eventually the pop radio world came back around and found them playable again. Coldplay is never going to be something for everyone. They’ll remain a punching bag album in, album out for critics who refuse to admit that there’s more than one way to experience music.

Sometimes all we want is pop music for pop music’s sake. To quote the band’s latest single: “I turn the music up, I’ve got my records on. I’ll shut the world outside until the lights come on.” Indeed. Coldplay’s latest may not be the brilliance everyone seems to have expected, but it’s a perfectly acceptable fifth album from a band clearly set on continuing to craft addictive pop confections long after their critics have put down their pens. If it’s not your cup of tea, there’s always another remix album of Radiohead’s King of Limbs you can dig into while venting about how bands like Coldplay don’t live up to expectations.

New photos of Chris Martin & Jonny Buckland at Little Noise Sessions in London (24th November 2011):

Photos courtesy of laura84

Mylo Xyloto review 15: Princess Of China album's strongest moment (The Maneater student newspaper)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

In continuation of our features involving less mainstream reviews of Coldplay's new album Mylo Xyloto, our next one comes from The Maneater, the official student newspaper of the University of Missouri. A short but succinct review that captures the feeling that tweaks to Coldplay's sound is more than good enough at this stage of their career. Oh and they love the collaboration with Rihanna too. They give the album overall a solid 3/5 stars. Read on for their review...

For some, Coldplay’s continued popularity is inexplicable, but for many, it is totally understandable. The band takes a very broad Britpop base (vast production, big sound, stadium-filling ambition) and tempers it with a refreshing sense of balance and sweetness, never taking enough of an angle to be polarizing. Always revolving around the complementing sounds of Chris Martin’s earnest falsettos and piano with Jonny Buckland’s chiming, understated guitar work, the band’s sonic imprint is always at least an impeccable piece of craftsmanship.

Ambitious but never bold, the group finds a unique balance of sound and purpose that rarely comes off as preachy (U2), overtly artsy (Radiohead) or theatrical (Muse). All those bands are infinitely more original and engaging, but Coldplay proves a middle-of-the-road approach can’t be hindered by an ability to crowd-please and continually tweak its sound.

The band's repeated employment of legendary producer Brian Eno proves as much. Known for taking stadium-filling groups and pushing their limits in the studio (Talking Head’s Remain In Light, U2’s Achtung Baby), Eno doesn’t quite achieve that effect on their latest, Mylo Xyloto. His blend of industrialism and bold rock elements has worked better elsewhere (David Bowie’s Heroes). But as on 2008’s blockbuster Viva La Vida, he creates a nice dimensional quality to the arrangements. The propulsive, disembodied acoustic guitar on “Charlie Brown” pushes without shoving the sound, and the muted, almost damp backing on “Up In Flames” brings some understated beauty to the track.

The foursome is dependable as always on more conventional tracks like “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” and “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart,” but when Eno pushes (even slightly) outside the comfort zone, the results are surprisingly impressive. “Hurts Like Heaven” is a workout of Postal Service-style beats, and “Princess of China” is a suitable showcase for guest vocalist Rihanna — her clean vocals running against the crackling guitar and synth background make for an attesting dance-rock hybrid that’s perhaps the albums strongest moment.

Of course, the band’s commitment to populism limits these moments, making the resulting big ballads like “Us Against the World” and “U.F.O.” vaguely pretty but bland, and the supposed concept of two lovers in a future society never quite gets off the ground. However, almost everything else on Mylo Xyloto works well, and one can’t help but imagine how some of these songs could completely fill the large venue spaces Coldplay commands so well.

That the band has the capacity to surprise and engage at this career stage when it's commercially unnecessary is proof enough that Mylo Xyloto is a worthy addition to the Coldplay catalogue and that good rock stars are better than none. [Article ends]

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Coldplay, Guy Garvey (Elbow) and Lady Gaga all in the same photo from Children In Need Rocks Manchester, MEN Arena (17th November 2011):

New Chris Martin interview with Maxim discusses: Fighting with desks and waking up in strange places

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

A new interview with Chris Martin has surfaced online - the source being Men's magazine Maxim. In it, Chris discusses (again) the Rihanna collaboration, and other topics such as his 'buff new physique', fighting with desks, waking up in a school playground in South Chicago, and the Bruce Springsteen influence. Incidentally, the interviewer, Joe Levy, is the same interviewer who was asking the questions for the Charlie Rose programme aired in 2006. Read on... [Discuss this article in the Coldplay forum now (thanks coldplaymom)]

We’re impressed by your buff new physique.

Well, in your 30s you can’t let nature take its course.

You’re grappling with your mortality, or you’re grappling with putting on weight?

Not putting on weight. It’s just there’s something about the Born in the USA–period Bruce where he hit the gym and looked hungry again. That’s how we feel.

Both you and Lady Gaga have referenced Springsteen as inspiration for your new records. We wouldn’t have seen that coming.

No. Bruce in the past 10 years has turned a whole new generation on to him. And it’s great in your 30s to discover a new favorite band, and at the same time, in the same decade, discover so much about Jay-Z and Kanye. It’s been a nice two avenues of inspiration.

So how did the Rihanna collaboration on Mylo Xyloto, “Princess of China,” come about? Because you’ve name-checked Beyoncé so many times in the past, we would have expected her to turn up on the album.

Well, I did write a song for Beyoncé, but it got rejected by her A&R people. And the one I wrote for Rihanna didn’t get rejected. It was when she was doing Rated R, but it took so long—there’s still this tribalism in music where we’re rock and you’re pop and you’re hip-hop, and it sometimes takes a while to get across those barriers. Whereas a 14-year-old doesn’t even see those barriers. So once we started thinking like that, it was, “Who cares if we used to be shelved in different places in Tower Records?” She’s fucking rad, and I love listening to her. It’s my favorite real singing on the album, ’cause it isn’t me.

It’s great to hear her sing straight, without Auto-Tune, but you really go for it on this record as well.

Ah, you’re being worryingly nice. I’m a very suspicious man these days.

Why?

On our last record we had very high highs and very low lows, becoming more successful in lots of places and coming under attack from new kinds of enemies. Being sued and all that kind of thing. And it was all bollocks. So we’re very driven to sort of prove ourselves all over again. It’s given us a tougher gang mentality.

Do you think of your band as a gang or a family?

It’s one and the same, especially if it’s an Italian gang. But I could never be in a van with my real brother; he would kill me in the first three days. My younger brother, Al, is a metalhead. He got me into AC/DC and Pantera, but he doesn’t want to go anywhere near a piano.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

I’m lucky I’ve had so much great advice from my heroes…starting with my dad saying never give up. [Producer] Brian Eno told us don’t worry so much. Will [Champion, Coldplay’s drummer] got me to cut my hair for the last album, because he said I looked like Art Garfunkel’s ugly cousin. He said if I came out with massive curls no one would take it seriously. I said, “They won’t take it seriously anyways.”

Do you have any scars that tell a story?

I have a big scar on my neck, a Harry Potter lightning bolt. I had surgery when I was 11—I had a lump removed—but it was in the west of England, where surgery was like a pitchfork and some bailing twine. When I came back, my dad was like, “Fuck, what have they done?” I love it, though. I have a lot of scars on my eyebrows from microphone stands, and I have one on my knuckle from punching a desk.

What did the desk do to you?

I was in a fight when I was about 12, and I was trying to punch someone’s head, but they moved out of the way. That was when I learned I was not too good of a fighter. I was like, “This is no way to impress girls. I’m going to start writing ballads.”

What’s the strangest place you’ve ever woken up?

I woke up once somewhere south of Chicago in a children’s playground at about five in the morning. I have a lot of trouble sleeping, and this is when we used to fight as a band, and I definitely remember taking too many Ambien, but I can’t quite work out how I got there. I think I must’ve done that thing where you take Ambien and you start wandering around but then you just fall asleep somewhere. I woke up in this playground, but it was really quite near our hotel. That’s not really a strange place.

That is strange, but if you’ve got a Brazilian supermodel story, we’ll take that as well.

Well, I woke up next to an Oscar winner one time, and we got married. But the first time, that was pretty strange.

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Mylo Xyloto review 14: Coldplay freezes out early style with this solid record (Same Same)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Our latest featured review of Mylo Xyloto is from the Same Same website (Australian lifestyle magazine), who are another media outlet who enjoyed Mylo Xyloto. In fact, generally speaking although we try hard to reflect the general populous by posting a mix of good and bad reviews 'out there', we haven't actually found that many bad ones recently. Even the latest blog reviews we found over the last 48 hours have been highly positive, with only a couple posting mid-range scores. Read on for Same Same's full review...

Coldplay’s fifth studio album Mylo Xyloto is a stunning and solid record. A step on from 2008’s highest selling album, Viva La Vida, and following runaway successes of every album they have ever released, there was a certain pressure on Coldplay to deliver something of equal or greater standard. “We felt like so many people have already made up their minds about us, both good and bad, that we can sort of start again from scratch and try and reflect all the music we listen to and we love,” says Chris Martin of the record.

And the product? Coldplay’s most synthetic and experimental album yet; a ‘concept’ album set in a dystopic future, based around the narrative of two young lovers.

Mylo Xyloto is a great album, the perfect mix of melodic hooks and lyrics that only Chris Martin could get away with, and a new style of electronic-acoustic fusion that sees Coldplay embrace and put their own spin on recent music trends. “Now we have Justin Bieber and Adele to compete with and they’re a lot younger,” says Martin. “We have to have the energy to put as much effort into our work as they do”.

Rihanna features on Princess of China, which is quite a risky move for a band that has never really collaborated [on an LP] before. Before hearing the track, it’s hard to imagine a sound where both Chris Martin and Riri can comfortably perform together. But there was never a worry; the song is an epic mix of grandiose electric guitar and Asian-flavored synthetic pop with a distinct Coldplay twist that has made room for Rihanna to do her thing.

Other highlights include the instant classic Charlie Brown , which is the sort of Coldplay song that people will know the melody of but not actually know the title of the song (it is the closest the album comes to reminiscing on Viva ), Hurts Like Heaven , the closing track Up With The Birds and, of course, the first two singles from the album, Paradise and the fun Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (we’re still dancing from Splendour).

The album is lacking in the sort of acoustic love songs that have made them famous (fans will not find any updated versions of The Scientist or Fix You ), but this doesn’t really seem to matter. The closest Mylo Xyloto gets is the slow-burning Up In Flames, which is essentially a break-up song that has a gorgeously mellow tone to it.

In all, another home run for Coldplay. 8/10.

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Latest photos of Coldplay (well, mainly Chris Martin) at the MTV European Music Awards, Belfast (6th November 2011):

Mylo Xyloto review 13: SF Weekly compares Coldplay to The Police, on Mylo Xyloto

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Our latest featured review of Mylo Xyloto is from the San Francisco Weekly blogs site, who on their first listen of the new album have compared Coldplay with 1970's rock band, The Police, the 'never-cool band that nevertheless forced cool people to notice it in addition to the rest of the world'. PJ Harvey, M83, Robyn and the Pet Shop Boys all get a mention too. How do they arrive at these comparisons? Read on for their full review...

The No. 1 album in the country this week is by the biggest band on Earth. All is right with the world? Well, hold that thought. Unlike textural forbears U2 and Radiohead, much less the Clash or Nirvana, most people even willing to concede that Coldplay is a relevant force do not think it has made great albums. A Rush of Blood to the Head was very good, and surprisingly spiky when it wanted to be (which was not often), while X&Y and Parachutes were singles-plus-other-stuff.

Viva La Vida was Something Different, sort of. It had a huge title hit and will almost certainly age better than Zooropa (played "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car" lately?). But Eno's not exactly Nigel Godrich these days. Where does that leave Mylo Xyloto, which is allegedly named after the protagonists in a probably total bullshit storyline? With Coldplay's best reviews since Rush. Let's test them...

"Mylo Xyloto"

I'm sucker for the title-tune fakeout trick. Remember when you finally got to "Birds" on Quasi's Featuring "Birds" and it was literally just a minute of recorded birds? This isn't as fun.

"Hurts Like Heaven"

But oh what it leads into. Coldplay was so stodgy circa "Speed of Sound" or so that it's inevitable the most actually influential band of that era is who they're aping now: their idea of fun is Arcade Fire. But with synths! With any other band I'd scoff hard at this. But if Arcade Fire's bookish groove could make anyone less generic, it's these guys. And did I mention there's synths?

"Paradise"

God, that string riff. I know this. I swear. I like that the hip-hop drums, "para-para" stutter-syllable hook and single designation trick you into thinking this might be the Rihanna song. But it's not.

"Charlie Brown"

Love the cavernous How to Dress Well-style intro. And the guitar riff (doubled by marimba, of course!) What's with this band and guitar riffs lately? Are they trying to make people think they rock? Silly band. I like this as much as anything they've done, though.

"Us Against the World"

Cough; hardly. Cheeky title for the first "boring" song, though, considering Coldplay being boring is usually what the world's against. (The part of the world that isn't buying all the Coldplay records I mean. Chechnya, or something.) This is sprightly and tuneful.

"M.M.I.X."

Their "Treefingers". No really, it leads into the single like Radiohead did into "Optimistic." Though the single is, uh, much lighter fare.

"Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall"

From day one, I could not front about loving this song, which sucks because unlike merely loving the occasional Coldplay song, I've now demoted myself to loving the occasional Coldplay song about crying. To its credit, this beat-y thing did everything it could to avoid the typecasting of the title: triumphant, pennywhistle-like guitar riff, swellheaded bass-drum throb, and a cover endorsement by none other than Official Dancehall Queen Robyn, who sings it better but needs the guitar. Essential!

"Major Minus"

Speaking of Zooropa, this is a weird song with odd tech ideas and an odd melody some are comparing to Radiohead. And Chris Martin sings it in a goofy surfer-Ringo accent. But this is way too upbeat to be Radiohead. The trip-hop part that kicks in reminds me of "The Wind," off PJ Harvey's Is This Desire?. Still very impressed with the number of balls-out guitar leads Martin allows Johnny Buckland on this thing.

"U.F.O."

All right, a truly empty one. But it's only two minutes long. One reason this album's very good at circumventing bad reviews is because it's very coy; lots of interludes, or at least filler that could pass for them. Either way, this album's going by quickly. But "Waterfall"'s the only song in the last four that I'd actually ask myself to put on. And I'm going to keep comparing this band to M83 if it keeps naming stuff after UFOs.

"Princess of China"

The Rihanna one. Something cute about two of the most middlebrow, singles-only artists in recent memory being so in love with one another. But it's no "Disturbia." This is actually kind of chillwave -- check that stiff backbeat and frayed-out synth rain. But it cleans house significantly for RiRi's verse. If you think this isn't going to be a huge hit single, you're out of your fucking brain. "You stole my star" she sings. Uh, yeah.

"Up in Flames"

One of those pretty-good McBallads that Martin conjures up whenever he needs to fill that quota; it's this album's "Fix You" but with the space-rimshots from OutKast's "Elevators." But this is probably much tighter than "Fix You". Maybe even "The Scientist." I like this one a lot. Twisty harmonized falsetto hook of my dreams, and yes, guitar near the end. Weird how Coldplay's "pop" album is also definitely its "rock" album. Maybe this band is just gaining definition?

"A Hopeful Transmission"

30 seconds of muted worldbeat and strings, damn this went fast.

"Don't Let It Break Your Heart"

Lots o' big cymbal crashes and a skittering Pet Shop Boys bedrock in the verses. Occasionally the Irish bit from "Waterfall" sneaks back in. This one probably goes over huge live, if that's such a thing at a Coldplay show. I've never been to a Coldplay show. Do they rock?

"Up with the Birds"

Just a little trifle to end this remarkably joyous and fast-moving record that ends up being kind of greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly more so than that stupid M83 album. But is the biggest band in the world the biggest band in the world yet? Well, not necessarily. It's still too polite about space and musical economy, about not taking risks or busying up a chord sequence when they could drag out one somber note. But Coldplay isn't U2, because Chris Martin lacks the dominating ability to bludgeon you the way Bono does.

If there's an Only Band That Matters to compare them to, it's the Police, the never-cool band that nevertheless forced cool people to notice it in addition to the rest of the world. And Mylo Xyloto is definitely a Zenyatta Mondatta-esque title. You could call this Coldplay's Synchronicity, even though Sting/Andy/Stewart wrote both tighter ("Every Breath You Take") and looser ("Mother"). "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" makes the encrypted stalker's motto "Breath" sound as scary as it really is by comparison. And that's not necessarily a bad thing for either one. [Article Ends]

Kit yourself up for the forthcoming MX tour and get spotted with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

Latest photos of Coldplay at the MX launch event in Cologne, Germany (for 1Live Radiokonzert E-Werk - 2nd November 2011):

Coldplay, blockbuster releases and the death of music streaming?

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay’s decision to hold their new album, Mylo Xyloto, from all streaming services was one that record label EMI was reportedly uncomfortable with; but first week sales suggested it was a winning strategy that now hangs a question mark over the place of streaming for blockbuster releases, writes The Music Network in just one of dozens of articles on the subject (just take a look at how much interest there is in the Spotify story). Read on for the rest of this particular article... [Read some of the other articles and discussion on the Spotify/streaming topic in the Coldplay forum now!]

There are precedents here. Acts like Bob Dylan pulled their music from Spotify several years ago, a number of heavy metal labels recently pulled their content amid complaints over streaming rates, The Beatles have yet to license digitally beyond iTunes and AC/DC point blank refuse to go on any digital services and yet, with their 2008 release Black Ice, had their biggest selling album in over two decades.

In the UK alone, the new Coldplay album had the biggest first week for digital album sales in chart history (admittedly that is a ‘history’ that only dates back to 2004). Mylo Xyloto sold 83,000 copies digitally and 208,000 in total in its first week according to the Official Charts Company. The previous UK digital record was held by Take That’s Progress album in 2010 (79,8000 copies in week one) while Adele’s 21 did 76,000 downloads in its first week at the start of this year. Impressive figures, but behind the chart records lies another – more complex – tale entirely...

The difficulty here is that certain acts and labels still want to ringfence opening week physical sales as this tends to account for the bulk of total sales. One major record company head told TMN recently that, give or take a few thousand sales, a label can tell in the first two weeks how many copies an album will sell in its lifespan. As in cinema with box office opening weekend sales, the start of a sales campaign directs the ultimate shape of that campaign.

Coldplay are, however, that rare thing – an act with a track record of releases where each new album sells more than the previous one. Like Adele, they are the exception here – selling albums, mainly in a physical format, in high volume – rather than the rule. So while this strategy might work (certainly for first week sales) for Coldplay, it does not follow that it will work for everyone else.

So holding back major releases from streaming services can boost CD and download purchases in the short term, especially among hardcore fans keen to get new music as soon as it’s released. The longer term concern is that physical is a dying business and streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, MOG, Rhapsody and so forth need to have complete catalogues and all the new releases as a way of coaxing users to sign up for a rolling monthly subscription.

As soon as big name titles disappear from these subscription access-based services, consumers will start to question why they are paying a £10/$10/€10 a month premium for a service that cannot deliver them the music they want and expect to be there. Labels and acts will get higher royalties from downloads and CD sales (in the short term) than they will from streams, but collectively the industry needs to usher in a climate where streaming can be viable as the physical business is shrinking with every month.

The other wider problem is that users will go to unlicensed sources to track down music. The selling point of a service like Spotify is that it is “better than piracy” as the interface works and users know exactly that what they are getting will be official and high quality. Studies in Sweden prove that users who abandon P2P and sign up to Spotify do not go back to pirate sites. This is the long-term goal for labels and streaming services – as their very survival depends on P2P and torrent users embracing legal platforms.

While the Coldplay album was not officially on streaming sites, it has appeared on Grooveshark (although, tellingly, it is listed as Mylo Xyloto by ‘Chris Martin & Friends’ rather than ‘Coldplay’). Grooveshark is a streaming service that relies on user uploads and despite deals with some labels (and a settlement with EMI), its legality is not fully clear. The service uses the ‘safe harbor’ exemptions in the DMCA to only remove content when the copyright holder requests it. The Coldplay album has gone up and been taken down several times, with a slight name change each time, exposing how hard it is to police this all when uploaders regard the whole process as farcical.

This release experiment may have raised questions about the revenues behind streaming services (and that is clearly a wider debate that needs to be resolved), but it has also revealed that users will seek out (possibly unlicensed) alternatives if albums are not on their legal service of choice – meaning acts and labels must ask themselves which alternative is worse: one where some streaming royalties come through or one where no payments are made?

The real question here is not about if fans should buy rather than stream but rather if their first port of call for a new album is a licensed service or not.

Buy Buy Buy, not Stream Stream Stream

Kit yourself up and get spotted for the forthcoming MX tour with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

More Coldplayer reviews of Mylo Xyloto and latest poll results (part ii)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay's fifth album - Mylo Xyloto - is now over a week old (officially anyway) and as well as the media reviews we've been posting we promised another batch of Coldplayer 'first impression' reviews, along with the latest poll results from the main site and the forums. So far we've had in total somewhere in the region of 2500 votes asking what you thought of Mylo Xyloto - on a sliding scale from 10 (Brilliant) to 0 (Crap). Read on for some more of those reviews and also the latest polling figures...

If you haven't yet voted you can do so now on our sliding scale poll to the right of your screen and also here in the first impressions thread. You can read and join in with more discussion on the new album at the Mylo Xyloto forum now. [Many thanks to everyone who has given their views so far...!]

Wow. I am really shocked how much I like Mylo Xyloto. I think all the negative talk on here the last few months made me feel apprehensive towards the album to be honest - I wasn't really sure how to listen to it for the first time. I am very glad that I did not listen to the leak or listen to the entire album before I had the 320 kpbs official version. The first half of the album I was mostly familiar with due to the singles, live versions and the side A sampler. The only song on side B that I had heard was Major Minus. Obviously, the second part of the album was what I was looking forward to the most as it was mostly new, unheard Coldplay! I can definitely see why this album has fans divided. It is a new sound for Coldplay in terms of production and direction. However, there are many tracks where 'early' Coldplay is still there, just under new layers. Utimately, I gave the album a 9/10, which surprised me. I do truly feel it deserves it though. It is a good mix of all the previous albums, while still moving forward. [thanks mrman78]

I've just been listening to the album a lot more and i've arrived at my final verdict. Originally it was a 4 out of 5, i've taken it down to a 3.5. It's not a bad album, but at the same time that's the inherent problem with it, it's absolutely impossible for this album to offend because it ticks all the appropriate "pop" boxes that are relevant for 2011. That's not to say that's all it does, but the effect is noticeable. As I said in my previous review, there's no disputing the talent of this band and the boundaries they can break. You can hear elements of it on this album and can just imagine where they can go, but they don't because the pop sensibilities kick in. With absolutely any band or artist, that pisses me off. It's like a tease, you know they can go further in a way that would both be interesting and non-compromising to their identity as a band, but they just don't. For this reason, I disagree with the comparisons to U2 because they experimented with their sound in the 1990s and took it as far as they could as a quartet and at no point did they ever fail to be U2. For me, it worked and I admire them for it. This is what i'd like to see Coldplay do next. I stress again, not a bad album at all, but it could have been so much more especially in light of this being the follow up to Viva La Vida, my favourite Coldplay album. The thing with this album is i'm just struggling to find my "moment". After the first or second listen of Viva La Vida, I knew I loved Lost and would play the whole album again just to get to that track because of the atmosphere created by the percussion and Chris' haunting, brooding vocals. After that, it was Yes with its twangy, experimental sound and then Viva La Vida for its sheer beauty before it became a hit. I had things to lock onto which is what made the repeat listens so inviting. Plus, the overall tone of the album was just fantastic. With MX, it's just hard to find that moment. Sure, I love Major Minus because to me it feels like Yes meets Violet Hill. U.F.O and Up With The Birds have grown on me a lot. But even with those songs, I haven't identified with an actual lyric or riff that makes me go "yeah - lets hear those twenty seconds again!" The album leaves me satisfied, but not full. It's not their worst, X&Y, which just left me exhausted and drowsy. But with this, I just have no point of reference (so far) to really remember the album by. [thanks TryWhistlingThis]

I have been listening to the album non-stop for a whole week despite not being initially wowed by it and feeling kinda disappointed. I guess the excitement of having new Coldplay music was stronger than my disappointment and that made me need to listen to the whole album on repeat. That was until I got a couple of other albums yesterday, now I haven't listened to Mylo Xyloto in 2 days and don't think I'll be listening any time soon. So that's what I think it's the main problem about this album: it ticks the right boxes, it won't really offend anybody, it will make Coldplay fans devour the music and they won't be able to get enough of it for a while... until the novelty of it goes ... I don't see this album having any lasting power but I hope to be proven wrong. I'm still looking forward to seeing Coldplay live, but I'm sad this album doesn't even get close to having the effect ALL their previous albums had on me (including X&Y, which nobody seems to like and I absolutely LOVE together with AROBTTH). I welcome change and experimentation, as long as the results are good and actually work. [thanks francvi]

only had the time to listen to it twice, but I loved it on the first time round, unlike the last one which took me a few listens! There were a couple of songs which I wasn't sure of, but they are in no way crap, far from it, second listen and they are already getting under my skin. crackin' good album! [thanks belynelly]

I've gone once through it with a friend and listened to a couple of tracks after that. Right now I'm listening to it a second time. Apparently, the whole album is again a grower, just like many of the tracks we listened beforehand were. While I think that the album as a whole is definitely a success, I feel like several tracks on the album could use a rework considering production, especially Hurts Like Heaven, Major Minus and Princess Of China. Also, many songs really sound overloaded with electronic effects (which becomes obvious when you listen to acoustic songs like U.F.O. All in all, it seems really short, although it is not much shorter than Viva La Vida (only about a minute). Apparently that's what Coldplay wanted to achieve: a short and concise experience. I'd love to tack in some b-sides to expand it a bit, I somehow miss a bit of content. I like a lot the flow that the album has from Up In Flames onwards - after listening to Up In Flames separately, I just had to go on with the rest. I think I've only had that with Kid A before, and that's the best album I've ever heard I think. The transitions between the tracks in the first half are not as smooth though. ETIAW and MM do not flow at all. Mylo Xyloto has a lot of tiny flaws that make it unperfect for me. Somehow, I can't help the feeling that a lot of these tracks and the album as a whole would sound even better if several tracks were more stripped-down and acoustic and less loaded with layers of unnecessary electronic blubbers (Hurts Like Heaven, Paradise, Charlie Brown, Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall and Major Minus come to mind). Sometimes, they are great to help the song (e.g. the instrumentals), most of them just make it too artificial. I think this album has deserved at least 7 out of 10 stars for me, but it is too early for me to decide on it at that point. I guess I'd rank it close to VLV and above X&Y. Impossible to compare it to Parachutes and AROBTTH though, this album is completely different. My favourites at the moment: Charlie Brown, U.F.O., Don't Let It Break Your Heart, second half of Up With The Birds. [thanks Schröder]

I've listened to it 3 times already and I can't get enough of it. Loving the second half better than the first but I think it's because the live shows spoiled the first half of the album for me. I think if I didn't listen to the new songs from the live shows, it wouldn't have ruined the album for me. Still love it though as there are differences in the songs from the live shows. [thanks shred]

I'm on my fourth full listen through of the album. It's a good, solid album, but I'm not in love with it even on the 4th listen. This is kind of wierd for me. I fell immediately in love with Viva the first time I listened to it, same with Rush and Parachutes. X&Y took me a tiny bit longer to appreciate, but not that long. Just a few listens (I became a fan during X&Y era btw). It's a lukewarm reception for me. Maybe it had to deal with the promotional roll-out for this album? I exhaustively listened to all the singles and summer live performances becuase I was so excited. I think that excitement has worn off by now. I knew almost exactly what the album would sound like before I even got it. Also, I think the thing that kills my favorite songs from over the summer is the production. I don't mind production, Viva had plenty of production on it, but in a way that worked with the music. The production on Mylo Xyloto just kind of suffocates the songs. I can hear the beauty of the original "stripped down" songs such as Us Against the World and Charlie Brown that were part of the original "stripped down" album and I just want to tear off the production and have that raw sound that they originally had. I feel they would be stronger songs that way, although their studio counterparts aren't terrible by any means. I like some fine parts Charlie Brown, such as the piano outro, that get to be shown in their full glory on the album. I am not a fan of the voice affects on Hurts like Heaven. It was such a good song live, and it just completely lost it's power in the studio. Another song I have issues with are Up in Flames. I'm really just not a fan. I don't see the beauty in it whatsoever. I don't like the drum beat and Up in Flames is repeated one too many times. On to the positive. Princess of China wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I still don't enjoy it on the album. I would have much rather had Moving to Mars. I just don't like featuring artists on my Coldplay albums. I feel that it should have been a b-side or one of Chris's other side projects with the Hip-Hop and R&B artists he is so obsessed with. I really like A Hopeful Transmission, DLIBYH, and Up With the Birds. They all flow extremely well together and make a strong close to the album. Overall I guess I would give the album a 7/10. I gave it an 8 in the poll when I was listening for the first time, but I was over-excited. I need to listen to it many many times to see how much I will actually like it in the scheme of things. [thanks lotrobsessed101]

I'll have to re-review this in a week or so because I need to let it sink in. Overall, I think it's good. But I can't help thinking that this album would have been much better without the insane amount of production that went into this. Im interested to see how this album grows on me ill have to see how I feel in a week. I just have this feeling like im going to get tired of these songs fast. There aren't many times on the album where I get that real coldplay feeling that I'm used to on their other albums. I'm worried for the direction they're heading. Chris is always saying how the POC song was his favorite part of the album and if thats the case... what will the next album be like?! They'll never beat parachutes in my opinion, but I think they can do a bit better than Mylo Xyloto. Hopefully ill change my mind! [thanks grim99]

I only listened to the album twice and am looking forward to re-post after several listenings. I remember being excited about VLV already after the first listen and loving it right then and there, even though it took time to really get into some of the songs. As for MX, my first impression was that the A-side (up to Major Minus) is probably the greatest A-side ever made: it truly feels and sounds like a collection of greatest hits. Each song is super solid: pure gold. The B-side is, in my opinion, less impressive, though featuring excellent tracks like PoC and MM. The fact that the b-side contains all the really new songs make me think that I will have to listen to it a few more times before making up my mind about them. I found it very weird to be able to sing on most songs, due to the intensive early live promotion, EP and songs streaming on iTunes. Time will tell whether this is a good thing or not. So far then a great A-side and glimmers of brilliance on B-side. [thanks valypan]

Overall - I too would give it an 8.5 out of 10. I can hear the story, or at least my version of it, although I get a bit lost somewhere between Charlie Brown and U.F.O. Even so, feels very filmic. My favourite thing is the repeated melody from MX though, hidden at various points of the album. U.F.O. and AHT/DLIBYH are my highlights, although HLH is a close 3rd. If you haven't bought it yet, buy it now! [thanks JJB]

Viva's going to be timeless I think, but MX is not just 'of its time' but also possibly very dated already I think. The electronica (the breaks in PoC and the terrible 'CD is scratched' effect in BLIBYH spring to mind as some of the worst offenders) haven't seen their like in dance music since the mid-90s I don't think, and for good reason. And there is an awful lot of 80s influence in there that sounds totally redundant and utterly self-indulgent to me (having lived through that time myself). There was none of that on Viva. It was all new and original and still sounds fresh to me. Almost all of MX sounds derivative. Still early days so I really do hope my opinion changes! [thanks Tonsu]

5/10. It isn't actually what I was looking forward to for three years, but it taught me not to expect anything from Coldplay in the future. At the moment I feel like I wouldn't care much should they decide to retire. Their so desired masterpiece was made long before MX, anyway. As to the content of MX: My favourites are UATW and surprisingly, Up with The Birds. UATW was enchanting from the first time I heard it months ago. The studio version doesn't suffer any unnecessary changes and it sounds even more soft and friendly,Chris's voice there. I quite like UWTB, too. The eerie background in the first, solemn part of the song is mind-blowing, I would never have believed Coldplay could use something as wicked as that, especially not after my indifference, or rather disappointment with the most of what they produced this era. And then the unexpected, exuberant turn of the song. Liked that too. For me, this song is the only one where Coldplay succeed to surprise, in a positive way. It contains the reminiscences of the band I once loved. CB, HLH, ETIAW,Paradise and MM have remained the same and I already discussed them someplace else. I can't decide as to DLIBYH and UFO yet. That might signify they may be worth while. Princess of China- Ugh. The quality is not much better than that of the recorded video. Rihanna isn't helping much, either. I think all the intros (MX, MMIX, AHT) are stupid. As in, them being separate songs is completely unnecessary. Of the three, MX sounds quite nice and embellished, but I would tie it up with an actual song, that song not being HLH or any other of the album,though. It is such a shame to have MTM left out, but it obviously wasn't their thing this time. This is the first Coldplay album I have no intention of buying and I'm happy I haven't pre-ordered it. There are definitely albums more worth my money out there. RegulusBlack]

Comparing Coldplay to U2 is one of the easiest things to do. It’s simple to understand though; both have massive appeal, are charitable and after this album Coldplay will join U2 to become easy targets for Indie snobs to feast upon. Follow up to an epic album is much harder than a disappointing one. The expectation are high, the comparison inevitable and fetching for similarities evident. In this case “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends”, an album which not only established Coldplay as “The Biggest Band of The World” but saw their creative juices flowing to an ever high. So how do you plan for the next album? By naming it “Mylo Xyloto” of course. Original ideas are hard to find. But christening your record to words which have no place in Dictionary or any meaning is evidence to lengths to which the band can go for marking a whole new impression on listeners. Started off as an acoustic album, “Mylo Xyloto” was previously planned to act as a soundtrack to a movie, pieces of which are evident in the record. Influences from other popular music styles (RnB, hip-hop, electronic etc.) cropped in and it soon turned into a composite of everything. A dynamic mix to convey a story and hence Coldplay’s first concept album is born. Never have Coldplay paid such high attention to detail. They have worked their heart out to get it right, to convey a message, to paint a picture, to make it more graphic. Some may call it “over-produced” but it’s important to know that everything (from addition of noises to effects) was carried out to say a story (as stated above). This album hits out emotionally in much more direct ways than “Viva La Vida” ever did and Jonny assumes a lead role for most of the parts. With Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay have managed to enter the new decade with an album that showcases not only their versatility but also the intent of staying relevant by re-inventing themselves time and again. It’s not their “Achtung Baby”, it’s their “Mylo Xyloto”. [thanks Saketblitz - read more]

I'm not very articluate so I can't really put into words why exactly....but I love this album from start to finish. I have listened to it daily and am not getting tired of it yet. I guess it's because I like the upbeat dancy type songs, and these ones are done by Coldplay. So I have the best of both worlds in my opinion. I thought I was going to be disappointed by the fact that there are a lot of songs that are a different style than we're used to. No. Love them all. [thanks mamgirl]

Uncompromising isn't a word readily associated with Coldplay. All too often the critics will point to some kind of appeasement in the band's output - either to the fans, perennial favourite the label, or to the critics themselves. Frankly, at this point in their career the band should pretty much be their own boss. Their success and mass appeal today is almost peerless and this shouldn't be something to be ashamed of (even if they continue to yearn for Radiohead's credibility). So the overriding feeling with new LP Mylo Xyloto is that intention is to write songs on their own terms, unhindered from all the external baggage that goes along with being billed as one of music's big boys. Themes of defiance, adventure, paranoia, pain and resilience are all here (no doubt quite familiar by now), but whether they constitute a 'concept' is up for debate. MX is fortunately blessed with the ever-present rich, soaring Coldplay trademark melody - nobody does it better. However on this particular outing it is painted (or should that be spray-painted?!) by a bass-heavy electro/R&B production. As a result it exudes a pomp, vigour and energy rarely tapped into by the band previously. It works surprisingly well. The spine is imperious - from the drum driven question-asker Hurts Like Heaven, to mid-tempo single Paradise and then the adventurous Charlie Brown. Centre-point raver Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall is joyful and unbound (albeit lyrically challenged), on to paranoid stomper Major Minus and later the yearning swagger of Rihanna-enhanced Princess of China (although try and ignore the la la la's in the chorus). Penultimate track Don't Let It Break Your Heart is punchy and brash, if a tad on the short side. But, there is a flaw with this record. Having set their stall out early and with the great beyond for once in sight, the retreat back to a zone of acoustic comfort is all too quick. The head of steam achieved in the first four tracks and then later after ETIAW and Major Minus, is rather negligently disposed of. The band has admitted in press that there were two albums in development - an electro and an acoustic. You get the feeling that both could have co-existed well in their own right, but together the sum of the parts isn't greater. Whilst UFO is as good a melodic song that the band have done in recent times, and Up In Flames is beautifully simple, with more self-discipline maybe they shouldn't have made the cut. Along with the stripped down wailer Us Against The World, these could have worked wonders on a standalone LP or Prospekts March-esque follow-up. What Mylo Xyloto would have become as a result is a ballsy, relentless powerhouse electro-rock record from start to finish - a real statement to all and sundry. Instead the result is at times a disjointed effort, which meanders from what makes this album potentially fantastic. Yes, the quieter numbers are strong in their own right, but you have to question whether they fit. But to focus on the negative would do disservice to Mylo Xyloto, because there is much to praise. Sonically Coldplay continue to evolve and experiment where others rest on their laurels. The band offer a far more coherent proposition than predecessor Viva La Vida, where perhaps too much of guru Brian Eno's musical chemistry set were experimented with. If you buy into the 'new' electro sound (which some hardcore Coldplay-ers might not) then you'll love it. Hurts Like Heaven (although a little under-cooked in its studio guise) and Charlie Brown stand up amongst the best in the band's back catalogue to date. Complex closer Up With The Birds is also a highlight. Ironically it brings together the acoustic and electric seamlessly here, and is hopefully a sign of things to come. Coldplay uncompromising though? Agonisingly not quite, yet... 7/10. [thanks IpsRich]

Kit yourself up and get spotted for the forthcoming MX tour with Coldplaying's new range of merchandise! [click on the items for the full shop]

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

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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):

All photos courtesy of MrsMartin333 via Facebook (click for more!)

Mylo Xyloto review 10: Coldplay maintain their stadium-spanning grandeur with new album (Pitchfork's 7/10 shocker)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

We're into double figures now with our featured Mylo Xyloto reviews and how fitting it is to give way on our tenth review to Pitchfork - the score many people were waiting for. Their rating of 7/10 surprised many, given that no other Coldplay album has received a higher score from them. You can read earlier articles on the score previews and also the final poll results on what you thought the score might be. Well, now we know what they've given, you can read exactly what Pitchfolk thought to back up their rating of Mylo Xyloto...

"No one knows what it means, but it's provocative… gets the people going." A couple of Chris Martin's good buddies memorably flipped this obscure bit of Blades of Glory dialogue on Watch the Throne to annotate the purchase of Margiela jackets, but it's every bit as applicable to the title of Mylo Xyloto and speaks toward Coldplay's lofty ambitions on it. A new Coldplay album is the sort of thing that's used as a health check for the record industry, and the band is very much aware that they could just release "a new Coldplay album" that would leave everyone involved satisfied-- this is essentially what happened on 2005's X&Y, their fastest seller and also their weakest LP according to many...

But being criticized as bantamweight compared to peers like U2, R.E.M., or Radiohead has clearly worn on them-- and truth is, they're all the better for their guilty conscience about a total lack of post-punk credentials. While Coldplay will always be more enjoyable than groundbreaking and their artistic advances seen as smart troubleshooting than divine intervention, Mylo Xyloto works because the band once again manages to sound like Coldplay without sounding like any of their previous LPs, maintaining their stadium-spanning grandeur while subtly challenging preconceptions.

While retaining the studio services and crucial cosign of Brian Eno, it's a relief that their most carefully thought-out work initially sounds less ambitious than Viva La Vida, a record whose orchestral and political bombast felt at the very least a necessary act of aggressive rebranding. Mylo Xyloto is brighter in both attitude and especially timbre, sleeker, more emphatic and up to the task of being a capital-E Event. Though their collaboration with Rihanna on "Princess of China" makes it all the more explicit, when you're at Coldplay's level, pop acts are your competition and Mylo places itself in a lineage of ultra-mainstream rock records spanning from Born in the U.S.A. to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-- swaddled in synths and gilded by state-of-the-art production, but never too off-putting if you still insist that "real music" is played by men with guitars.

Indeed, the militant, pound-the-dashboard beat that powers "Hurts Like Heaven" sounds like the band jockeying for the Boss' nod of approval. It's a remarkably aerodynamic piece of all-purpose inspirational rock that never gets too pushy even with Martin's meaningful/meaningless proclamations ("You use your heart as a weapon/ And it hurts like heaven"), tweaking its classicist template with a slight Auto-Tune on the falsetto harmonies. Likewise, the imperial march of "Paradise" is wheelhouse Coldplay, as is Martin's unfortunate tendency to stretch out syllables for rhymes that really aren't worth saving. But its power has little to do with whatever Martin's going on about (dreaming of paradise, mostly)-- it's all about how they unabashedly flirt with contemporary R&B production, cranking the drums way up in the mix and the massing the vocals on the chorus to overwhelming, Pavlovian effect. They don't want to completely do away with Coldplay qua Coldplay-- they're still four normal-looking guys who introduced themselves with frail post-The Bends Britrock like "Yellow" and "Trouble". But they continually ask, why limit themselves to that?

Of course, some of their limitations aren't really a matter of choice. While there's no shortage of venomous carping at Coldplay's expense, I've never heard anyone complain about Jon Buckland's guitar tone or the rhythm section not being up to snuff. All sonic tinkering aside, Martin is still a full-time target serving as the perfect avatar for Coldplay, undeniably well-meaning, painfully earnest, and lord, does he try. When Martin tells you that Mylo Xyloto is a conceptual love story inspired by the White Rose movement and The Wire, don't you at least believe that he believes it? So he's still a sucker for big parables told like he's the first to come up with them-- the innocence lost on the Muse-like stargazer "Charlie Brown" is documented awkwardly enough ("Took a car downtown where the lost boys meet/ Took a car downtown and took what they offered me"), even before you deal with the use of the Peanuts character as some sort of entry-level embodiment of adolescent purity. Likewise, though it's commendable that a multi-platinum band on its fifth record could make a swooning, waltz-time ballad called "Us Against the World" notable for not laying it on too thick, Martin pops off a line, "Drunken like a Daniel in a lions' den," like someone who's somehow just managed to hear "Hallelujah" for the first time.

Still, the collection of softies is among their best-- the measured beauty of breakup weeper "Up in Flames" and "U.F.O." confidently update the guilelessness of Parachutes through a self-described and self-explanatory "Enoxification." But maybe restraint's not what you're looking for out of a Coldplay album, and if that's the case, none of the ballads have the sort of shameless goosebump triggering of "Fix You" or "The Scientist". Which isn't to say that Mylo lacks populist thrill; it's just trying to mine alternative sources. They've sidled up toward music of more hedonistic ideals before, especially on A Rush of Blood to the Head; Martin's vocals on "Clocks" worked incredibly well filtered through dance remixes, while the ecstatic surge of "Daylight" really needed no translation. And thankfully, the revolutionary rhetoric of Mylo is based on love in this club rather than dope, guns, and fucking in the streets.

The aforementioned "Princess of China" is an insistent, mechanized grind that fits just as easily on Mylo as the next Rihanna album, though it wouldn't be a single-- everyone seems to be taking it just a little too seriously. The important thing is that it'll sound great at the Grammys. And "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" will surely work well as a festival closer: As a call to arms, it's pretty much nonsense, Martin's already infamous "I'd rather be a comma than a full stop" threatening to bring "Teardrop" to a dead halt. But then you remember Coldplay aren't just Martin-- it's Will Champion's kick drum guiding its four minutes of skyward propulsion, one of the cruelly underrated Buckland's pealing, major-key guitar leads (think "Strawberry Swing"), and, yes, Martin's wordless cooing coming together in a way that's sui generis Coldplay-- a band on top of a game they really don't have much competition in.

These are the moments I think about when people lament the lack of a monoculture-- so often we speak of indie bands that "should be huge" and songs that "could be hits" in an alternate universe. But with "Teardrop" and "Hurts Like Heaven", there's a thrill of knowing these songs can, should, and will be on the radio that you just can't recreate. With all due respect, while M83 shoot for a similar extroverted exhilaration on Hurry Up, We're Dreaming-- the penultimate electro rush of "Don't Let It Break Your Heart" proves both bands are ever closer to intersecting-- the idea that it could fill arenas still involves wishful thinking. It's still one man's project, whereas Coldplay was built for this from day one. It shouldn't matter, but it does-- while so many bands at their status revert to bloated contentment or some vague idea of rockist salvation, Mylo Xyloto finds Coldplay successfully continuing to explore the tension of wanting to be one of the best bands in the world and having to settle for being one of the biggest.

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

All photos courtesy of MrsMartin333 via Facebook (click for more!)

Featured Mylo Xyloto review 9: "Coldplay with a new spring in their step" (Dale & Co)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The next of our featured Mylo Xyloto album review comes from the website Dale & Co - a great current affairs 'mega-blog' from the UK. Their Mylo Xyloto review rates the album an 8.5/10, and focuses on Coldplay's continuing desire to 'take the world by storm' whilst exploring different musical approaches with the fifth album. Here reads their review...

Bono once said during the promotion for All That You Can’t Leave Behind at the turn of the century that U2 were “reapplying for the job of the best band in the world”. To the same extent, Coldplay, the apparent heirs to the Irish rockers, seem to have been justifying a similar position with every output since X&Y in 2005. This time, with the release of the mysteriously named Mylo Xyloto, they certainly explore different musical approaches, but retain an underlying desire to go big.

According to the band, while the naming of the title is entirely frivolous - the criteria being that “it couldn’t be found in a Google search” - essentially it documents “loosely a kind of romance [between two protagonists, Mylo and Xyloto] in an oppressive environment”. Originally planned as a stripped back and acoustic record, the final result is the polar opposite; washes of colour, dance beats, synths and electronics show the band moving out of their comfort zone, though the guitar hooks, piano solo’s and heartfelt lyrics which are so synonymous with Coldplay remain.

Brian Eno, this time “more a collaborative writer than a producer”, stamps his mark of so called “Enoxification” on the record from the outset with the opening title track, one of three instrumentals on the album, which according to lead singer Chris Martin involves all four members of the band trying to “play their instruments as fast as they can” in order to “shake off any nerves” at the start of live shows. However, as it blends into ‘Hurts Like Heaven’ it’s hard to comprehend how even the famously self-depreciating Martin could possibly be apprehensive. The upbeat nature of the track suggests the band have a newfound spring in their step as jumpy guitars, energetic beats and talk of “spray can soul” liken it to the post-punk of Echo & the Bunnymen and the Cure.

On reflection, it’s now difficult to believe how the second single, ‘Paradise’, was so divisive among fans upon it’s release. With it’s epic strings, R&B influences, piano jigs and ultra-singable lyrics, it now seems to fit comfortably within the repertoire. However, despite its’ obviously lofty pop ambitions, the next track, ‘Charlie Brown’ is more likely to provide Xyloto’s ‘Viva La Vida moment’. Buckland’s guitar hook throughout is instantly recognizable to the extent that you begin to seriously question whether you’ve heard it before. It’s certainly hard to comprehend how it was once the focal point of the early acoustic LP initially planned by the band in their North London studios ‘The Bakery’ and ‘The Beehive’, and that it originally “featured an organ”. Thankfully, the version we are presented with today is less of a church hymn, and more of a hallucinogenic licence for stadium crowds to spring into action. “Took a car down town and took what they offered me, to set me free, I’ll be glowing in the dark” exclaims Martin rather uncharacteristically considering this is the rock band who are known for having a self-imposed policy which strictly prohibits the use of hard drugs. That being said, the recently released music video (

) for ‘Paradise’ may suggest the rule is less stringent now that it once was...

‘Us Against The World’ brings Coldplay back to their musical roots, and thus would not feel out of place on their debut album Parachutes. Nevertheless, as the band have pointed out in numerous interviews, it’s appropriate in describing the band’s current mindset. “We felt so many people had already made their minds up about us, both good and bad” admits drummer Will Champion “[so we decided to] sort of start again from scratch and try to reflect all the music we listen to and love’”. The cringe-worthily named lead single ‘Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall’ confirms this by showing that they have no issue with breaking away from the mould in which people might like to fit them in. The now familiar synth-led song, with its’ youthful lyrics and high pitched guitar riff remind us of how long Xyloto has been in the pipeline. However, unlike with the taster EP released in June earlier this year, the song is greatly enhanced by the preceding simplistic instrumental ‘MMIX’.

‘Major Minus’ shows Coldplay at their edgiest, darkest best, and is perhaps more representative of their rockier live experience. Muffled vocals become entirely justifiable when considering the ‘Big Brother’ context of the song as “They’ve got one eye watching you, so be careful what you do” makes Chris Martin’s description of Mylo Xyloto as a “schizophrenic” album clearer. It also provides an insight into where Coldplay could take their sound post-MX era. Contrastingly, ‘UFO’ is a song which, despite its cosmic name, has its feet firmly on the ground. Just like ‘Us Against The World’, it’s the sound of Coldplay when they were more often described as “just a bunch of geography teachers” than the dinner friends of Beyonce and Jay-Z. That’s not to say it’s any less worthwhile; it proves that they can still relate to their roots despite coming an extremely long way over a relatively short period of time.

The much deliberated ‘Princess of China’ fits more comfortably into the track-listing than one might think it would; but fundamentally the vocal input of Rihanna’s still seems slightly false. Indeed, it might be the one moment on the album where Coldplay take one step too far out of their natural comfort zone. Unfortunately, despite it being believable that the band are fans of the Barbadian diva, it inevitably comes across as a marketing stunt. For one of the most “Marmite” of bands, this offering will only continue to divide opinion. But expect it to become a guilty pleasure, do well in the charts and introduce Coldplay to a new audience. Still, Chris Martin’s “Hugh Grant moment” when approaching Rihanna to sing in the song shows his inability to act like the frontman of the world’s biggest rock band. But arguably, his modest, self-effacing personality is principally what defines his knack for emotional, often troubled songwriting; a style which is displayed perfectly by the following track ‘Up in Flames’, which initially appears, with its repetitive beat and ultra-simple structure, to be a rare example of a Coldplay filler, but after a few plays grows on the listener to become the album’s unexpected gem.

‘A Hopeful Transmission’, in effect a remake of the instrumental opener, leads into ‘Don’t Let It Break Your Heart’, which more or less serves as a microcosm for the band; lyrically poetic and heartfelt, if perhaps sometimes a little shallow, but packing a distinctly melodic punch created by the layering of flourishing instrumentals. ‘Up With The Birds’ is a song of two halves; initially appearing to provide a cloudy, dreamy end to the record, before Buckland’s input of noticeably Edge-like strumming finishes the 45 minutes on a high.

It’s not often that an album fundamentally consisting of pop tunes satisfies the need to be experimental, but Mylo Xyloto seems to do just that. It manages to easily please those who demand a continuous supply of stadium-ready anthems, yet at the same time provides enough progression that it doesn’t make us feel as if we’ve heard it all before. It might not stand the test of time like their magnum opus A Rush of Blood to the Head will - in thirty years time that will still be the piece of work which will define them as a band - but Mylo Xyloto is an album immersed in the present. It’s more modern, urban and expansive offerings may indeed satisfy those who up till now have not felt a likening to the “nobody said it was easy” and “I never meant to cause you trouble” nature of Coldplay songs past, but essentially it’s still the same four-piece at heart. As Martin wails “It’s Us Against The World” it’s hard to see how the “nice guys of rock”, with a new spring in their step and armed with new ammunition, will not come to “rule the world once” again.

Rating: 8.5/10.

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

All photos courtesy of MrsMartin333 via Facebook (click for more!)

Mylo Xyloto review 8: "MX is Catchier Than Cholera" (Sabotage Times - no rating)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The next of our featured Mylo Xyloto album review comes from the Sabotage Times from London who write quirky articles. Their Mylo Xyloto review is no different - although they don't give a rating for the album, they bloody love it, with their standout track being Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. Read on for their review...

Once upon a time I hated Coldplay, but their latest album 'Mylo Xyloto' contains a brand of non-X-Factor pop that I can't help but love. I used to think Chris Martin was a soft student spokesperson for a new wave of indie music at the end of the nineties. Full of smiles, jokes and flawless interviews, he seemed to be the antithesis of everything Liam Gallagher stood for. I thought he had removed the rebellious heart and soul of rock and roll and stuck a giant Habitat display cushion in its place and I hated him for it.

I was, of course, jealous. I grew up in the same city as Chris Martin and watched the rise and rise of Coldplay through breakthrough album Parachutes, a collection of songs I initially dismissed as break up songs for middle class girls and bed wetting boys. A year later, I realised what a landmark album Parachutes was and every Coldplay album since has needed intense listening to decipher the euphoric layers of piano, strings and guitars that sit on top of simple, confessional lyrics that you can instantly get behind. X&Y may have been a Coldplay album which playfully sampled Kraftwerk and flirted with pop but Mylo Xyloto starts dancing on the way to the stage and waves a banner which reads ‘TUNE!’ before the music starts...

Mylo Xyloto arrives in blur of synth, beats and trippy tunes which are so pop, it’s like walking into G.A.Y when you meant to pop into Starbucks. It’s the biggest change for Coldplay in a decade and debut single Every Teardrop is A Waterfall is so catchy, it finally gives Chris Martin a valid reason to pogo around the stage and pause to shag his piano in time to the strobe lighting. Every Teardrop is a Waterfall is a sparkling European rave with squealing riffs and widescreen lyrics about cathedrals and waterfalls. It is to pop what Grammy-winning Clocks was to rock, twisting the epic dial to 11. The new Coldplay uniform of day glo basketball boots and paint splattered jeans reminds us of Jeremy Clarkson shopping in Shoreditch with Gok Wan but we can get over this because Coldplay have never been fashion icons to anyone.

New uniform aside, adding modern pop flourishes to the Coldplay template sounds terrifying. On paper, Coldplay going pop prompts fears of a Chris Martin fronting a Genesis style tribute band, waving glow sticks above a Yankee baseball cap propelled by a giant bottle of fair trade poppers while Jay Z moonwalks in time to Yellow. Thankfully the reality is different. We’ve been given pop that isn’t fronted by Biebers, Chipmunks or Playboy models at a foam party and pop that’s so easy to love, it will enter your iPod as easily as your dad’s Christmas stocking.

The Mylo Xyloto style of pop is fresh and original and hasn’t been overshadowed by the presence of Rihanna who guests on Princess of China and, free of auto tuned tweaks, sounds like a natural siren against a wall of synths. There’s snatches of samples you might expect Kanye West to offer Jay Z on a plate but for every hip hop sample, there’s a Coldplay chorus or cascading orchestra of pop which always takes centre stage, creating a strand of pop DNA undiscovered by Swedish dance producers, Lady Gaga or Calvin Harris.

At times, even the riffs on Mylo Xyloto go a bit pop: Major Minus begins as an aggressive acoustic strum before the whoop and thrust dance-rock fusion of Primal Scream arrives, evolving into shimmering U2 guitars. It’s the song that stunned Glastonbury 2011 and pissed on the fire that fellow headliner Bono tried to create for U2.

For all the epic and wholesale gobbling of the pop pill, it’s not all stadium bands that are influences on Mylo Xyloto. There’s short nods towards The Gossip’s brand of electrostatic lesbo stomp rock, Charlie Brown contains traces of The Gaslight Anthem and Up With The Birds sounds like a prayer which could have been made by any unsigned indie band. Hurts like Heaven starts with the frantic skip and finger clicks of Vampire Weekend or Jack Penate before hollow lyrics and a confusion of oriental riffs and familiar Coldplay chord structures turn sour. It’s a combo that falls flat next to the headline pop anthems which make up most of the album. Paradise is custom built for stadiums and festivals and sits on the face of traditional Coldplay acoustic songs, smothering the fragile, Parachutes-era Us Against The World.

Coldplay are always going to have an equal mix of lovers and haters but Mylo Xyloto is a great album. Surprisingly, Mylo Xyloto manages to bring back pop to everyone and isn’t fronted by auto tuned, factory farmed jailbait on an endlessly repeating X Factor conveyor belt. Coldplay have elbowed their way into the pop party and shared the love, producing original pop classics which, whatever your view of the band, deserves applause and, maybe, just maybe, a token wave of a glow stick.

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

All photos courtesy of MrsMartin333 via Facebook (click for more!)

Coldplay's fifth album Mylo Xyloto released worldwide today - read more of your reviews and latest poll results (Part i)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Coldplay's fifth album - Mylo Xyloto - has been released worldwide today (including the US now we've heard!) some three and a bit years after Viva La Vida, to another huge wave of media and Coldplayer reviews. Read on for some more of your first impressions of the new album - including the latest poll results on what you thought of it. So far 44% of visitors to the main site and 30% of people on the messageboard gave the album full marks - but there are votes right across the board. Read on for the full results...

Upon first listen, I felt a little underwhelmed. I didn't think it was bad, per say, but not what I was expecting. Upon a second and third listen, I really, really adore Mylo Xyloto. Like IOwxo2 said about Viva La Vida, I had the same issue with. Not this time around, however. The songs from this era give new life that I haven't felt in their past couple of albums. That said, it has its problems, but really, what album doesn't? I find it funny that I really liked Paradise previous to the official release of Mylo Xyloto, but I am not too fond of it right now. I assume it's because I've listened to it for so long that I want to hear the unheard things for now. For now, I'm going to give it a 8.5/10. It has energy, soul, emotion and beauty. Well done, Coldplay. [thanks DundahMifflin]

I'm still unprepared to put it in the album ranking list yet. I'm going to have to put some thought into that. And I had the same problem with VLV as well--really liked it, but didn't really get the brilliance of some tracks until later. This time, I felt that the songs I was iffy about I'd already heard, and they sounded much, much better in context of the album. Maybe it's because I was "more excited" for VLV's release, even though I had my concerns about what they were doing even back then. But I was so, so excited for it that when it came, it might have been inevitable for me to be a bit more critical of it at first (same thing happened to me with a non-Coldplay album this year that I was pants-wetting excited for). This time, I was quite worried about the whole thing, even though we'd heard most of the songs in some form, and was very pleasantly surprised. There was no hurdle of equating high expectations with reality and bringing them more down to earth: this time it was the opposite, and that was refreshing. [thanks ApproximatelyInfinite]

Just finished listening to it and I think that this is an incredible album. Let me just say that when Viva came out, it took me awhile for certain songs to grow on me but with this album, I didn't have that problem. I do not like the studio version of HLH and prefer the live version... same goes for Major Minus but other than that, I really love the album. So I give it a 8/10. I was actually quite surprised how much I liked Princess of China, I think Chris and Rihanna's voices go really well together. I love the studio version of Charlie Brown, U.F.O. is amazing and Us Against the World and Up In Flames still bring me to tears. Don't Let It Break Your Heart I loved immediately. It is so massive from beginning to end and is my favorite track. Up With the Birds is freaking gorgeous and a brilliant closing song. The boys did a brilliant job on this album and I am so proud of them. [thanks l0wxo2]

I think the right way for a new direction is what Viva was: With the instrumental diversity and world music vibes they had on there. It was really something, from the bongo drums on Lost! to the sitar in Yes (my favorite song from that era). However, throwing some synths on a phat beat isn't innovating, because sooooooo much pop music does that nowadays. Not that MX is bad by any means: I think it's a really good pop album. However, it's not as cohesive as Viva is, and I think they were going for cohesiveness and experimentation this time around. And yeah, while it's a different sound to what we're used to hearing Coldplay sound like, it still seems too safe and I can't help but get the feeling that this has been done before. I hope they step back and reassess themselves for the next album. Because while I like MX a lot, this will get old really quickly. I don't want Coldplay to become the crap pop-tart that Maroon 5 has become. Yuck. I'd give it an 8/10, but Coldplay: Watch your step. [thanks Baw8cc]

I've given it more time and it stands as a solid 7/10. UFO has grown on me and UWTB is now my favorite, POC > ETIAW >>>> Paradise, Charlie Brown and HLH are nice anthems, MX and AHT are really sweet, DLIBYH is bright and energetic and even a little shoegazy, Major Minus is still incredibly U2-lite, UATW is always incredible, and Up In Flames is monotonous and reflects how poorly Chris Martin's talent is aging. 7/10. Kind of meh, alright, easy to get sick of. [thanks admnistramation]

First thing to note, before buying the album, the only songs I listened to were those which were officially released on the band's website (Paradise/Waterfalls/Minus). I didn't listen to any leaks or even the live versions which have been circulating YouTube for the last few months.Absolutely love the artwork to the album, I get a choice of two covers! Overall, a good Coldplay album. For now, Viva La Vida is my favourite Coldplay album but I certainly prefer Mylo Xyloto to X&Y. After the innovation we got on the fourth album and its offspring EP, my expectations were obviously pretty high. I wouldn't say Coldplay have stopped inventing or tweaking their sound or even taken a backstep. I get the impression that while Chris wants the sound of the band to move forward, at the same he's very self-conscious of what critics and fans will think. He doesn't want to leave anyone behind but he also wants to keep people guessing with optimism. The transition we're seeing now to me resembles the Help-Rubber Soul-Revolver-Sgt Pepper transition of The Beatles in the sense that Coldplay is working up to something bigger. The transition in their sound is very methodical on this album in the sense that it doesn't take a massive leap forward like they did between X&Y and Viva. Next time around i'd love to hear a darker, moodier Coldplay with some atmosphere. While I like Mylo Xyloto for its exploration of sound, at the same time its done in a way that is decent and relevant to what is popular in the industry right now. I stress again, that does not make it a bad record but when you take into account the talent of the band and where the album could have gone, you can't help it wish for just a little bit more. 4 out of 5. [thanks TryWhistlingThis]

Personally, I find the album was superb, but it did have its flows. I find each song was so different than the text, so it kinda felt off balanced, but the story stayed strong. While I loved Moving to Mars, i'm sort of happy it wasn't on the album, i just don't think it would've fit with the rest of the songs =S. Id probably give the album 8.5 out of 10. [thanks ColdplayBlop]

Mylo Xyloto is definitly amazing. It's not their best, but still a great piece of art. Hurts Like Heaven and Charlie Brown are the best songs from it. Paradise sounds great in the concept of the album, and the interludes fit perfectly into the concept of it; Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall sounds better with M.M.I.X. and A Hopeful Transmission is a beautiful remix of Mylo Xyloto. I don't like the over-production in some tunes, but the second half of the album reminds me of Parachutes! (U.F.O., Up With The Birds...). Amazing, 8/10. [thanks JosephRengifo]

When it's good, it's actually good (Us Against The World, Charlie Brown) but when it's bad it falters (Paradise, Up In Flames). I'd rate it as the second worst Coldplay album, just hovering above X&Y. I'm a bit generous on the rating I guess as I gave it a 7/10. [thanks y3110w]

I just listened to it. It's a solid album, but I consider it their worst album. There's WAY too much production put into some of the songs, like "Hurts Like Heaven" (which was my favorite live track from the album besides "Charlie Brown"). "Princess of China" did impress me, but I still consider it decent (not enough Chris and not enough actual Coldplay with their instruments). Despite all this, however, I was really digging "U.F.O" and the last 4 tracks on the album, especially "Don't Let It Break Your Heart". For the people who say that it's a masterpiece though, I just want to ask you why? What makes this better than "Parachutes" and "A Rush of Blood to the Head", which are considered their masterpiece albums and put up with some of the greatest albums of all time (AROBTTH was ranked in the Top 100)? I'm not attacking your opinions of MX, I just want to know what makes you think it's so "groundbreaking". [thanks ImNotChrisMartin]

I give it a 7. The last part is absolutely incredible. It's wasn't as good as I would have expected 2 years ago, but I was pleasantly surprised. My favourite moment on the album is A Hopeful Transmission when it brings back the melody from the opening track, it's fantastic idea. The transition into DLIBYH is brilliant too. There's not a song I hate really, I've changed my opinion on ETIAW and Paradise because of the way they fit into the album, particularly ETIAW. So yeah overall I'm impressed. I didn't really get a feel for the narrative until the 2nd half where I sort of worked out what was going on. Decent album. I'd rank it 3rd behind VLV and AROBTHH. [thanks Cleggy]

Gosh if it were for those few singles/future single it wouldn't be so bad. I can even live with ETIAW, as i think it fits with the album pretty well. Paradise and and POC are just so bad wrong for coldplay. POC may be a fine pop song, but hearing it on the album sucked for me. I wish they left it off and released it on its own. As for the rest of it: I like the intro. And Hurts like Heaven is growing on me. Charlie Brown is still the next great Coldplay song. I'll stand by that statement I made after seeing them at ACL. Us against the world sounds good. Major minus is the song that I like (kinda) but just doesn't seem to fit on the album. I enjoy it live, but I don't think it belongs here. UFO sounds great, my favorite of the ones I hadn't yet heard. Up in Flames is ok, but I kinda find it boring. DLIBYH is pretty good. It remind me of Charlie Brown. And I'm actually ok with Up with the Birds. Overall, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. But I'm not sure I'll ever be able to fully forgive them for featuring Rhianna on an album. It will never be as good as A rush of blood or Parachutes but is still better than X&Y. Is it better than LP4? Only time will tell. But I doubt it. 5/10 [thanks winigwl]

After listening to the album a few times, I think it's really a very different (but great!) record. I do agree with some of the opinions, in which the first part of the record is a little disjointed. It feels like a mishmash of songs just tacked together with no flow. I'd like to give some constructive criticism though (It's just my opinion).. The first part of the album could've used some segues between the songs (like a transition, where the song fades/connects to each other) so that it would've been less jarring and more cohesive as if it were telling one whole story. The band did it for some of the songs (MX into HLH, MMIX into ETIAW, UIF all the way to UWTB) and, in my humble opinion, it worked brilliantly. In fact, the way the band integrated the tune from MX into UFO and AHT was a really great touch. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because the band are pitching it to be a concept album with a story to tell (that they made this record with the goal of getting people to listen to complete albums), and I personally feel that if the songs from the first half actually transitioned into each other it would have nailed that pitch perfectly and given a relatively different experience. As for POC, it's a great song but I'm still not sold and kind of puzzled.. Was Rihanna really necessary? It felt a bit out of place hearing a female voice suddenly pop out from nowhere. Despite that, I think I'm not going to let that ruin these songs for me. It's a stellar record, especially for the last few songs where they actually took time to develop the song instead of trying to make it as short as possible. [thanks cephaus]

8.5 - 9/10. Overall great album, Hurts like Heaven/Charlie Brown did not disappoint in their studio versions. Don't let it break your heart is beautiful, didn't expect this type of song on this album, amazing. Sounds like a sped up Clocks/Speed of Sound with hints of Charlie Brown mixed in, but even better. Up in flames, I heard it once in that live video, was waiting for the studio one.. Incredible <333 Probably ONE OF my favorites. [thanks ja5219]

i pretty much hate it... i like the songs as individual tracks that are from different albums and artists that i pieced together myself and then put them on shuffle but as an album the story is great but the rihanna thing was awful and the music was too loud its as if chris was fighting it just to be heard coz i really wish theyd go back to songs like yellow where it moved me when i listened to it. like my life was a mess but who cares im not the only one. i miss that conforting feeiling coldplay music used to make me feel. its good though but its not as good as COlDPLAY. i hope this is the rough version and not the studio one they will release coz i wouldve been very upset if i had bought it. ps: i love coldplay more than anything and i hope they make a more coldplay-ish album and release it like they did with prospekt's march. thatll be great. [thanks Kaeious]

This album has me on the fence on whether I like it or not. I came into this album with high expectations. Especially since Chris Martin said it was going to be a masterpiece. I would say I lean more towards liking it than not. It seems almost like there is no structure. I compare it to picking up a strangers poetry book and reading page by page as if it was a novel. Some pages (songs ) on this album are amazing and others that come right after make no sense at all. I heard so many great things about POC and man I was so disappointed. To much Rhianna. If it were more Chris Martin and Rhianna put in something then cool, but it doesn't seem like a coldplay song at all. It's as if it were written for both Coldplay and Rhianna's album. Not cool, the reason why I didn't mind Jay-Z on the lost remix was because he played his part and had a cameo. Not the whole song. All in all its a great album in general (better than half the crap out now) but simply a good Coldplay album. I hope this is not their last album cause this is not the way I would want them to go out. [thanks ColderPlay]

It's definitely a strange album. I totally understand why they kept on saying it's a concept album, because I really really do feel the story in it. Strangely enough, the story reminds me of a mix of those weird Japanese animated films like 'Spirited Away' mixed with the huge, destroyed universe of Half Life with the songs being the journey of the main character in these environments. Overall - Although I love this album, there's a lot that stop it from being perfect. I felt a lack of intimacy between us and the band, like you get in all the previous albums (more so AROBTTH), but the overall feel of the album together as a whole almost overcomes the need for some of those moments, because if you listen to the album as a whole you become so engrossed in the feel of it almost as if you're in this environment that Coldplay has created, and you're on a journey through this environment. They've definitely changed. But that's not bad. [thanks natmac10]

Overall first impression: Strong and fun with a ton of energy. Compared to the others, unfortunately it's not as good on the first listens, for me. VLV, Parachutes, and AROBTTH were instant classics. Much more enjoyable on first listens than X&Y was... It is as good as I was expecting, but didnt exceed my hopes. Coldplay will always be my favorite band, I suppose. This just isn't their best. Nor is it their worst... 7.5 of 10 over all. Maybe an 8. [thanks mountainloafers]

After a first two listens, I'm not impressed. Princess of China is atrocious, and it's not even Rihanna's fault. I hope I will ever be able to forget that this song exists. Us Against The World is actually better on the album than live, which surprised me in a positive way. I was also surprised by DLIBYH (barring the last minute of the song). It's not that bad. But it feels a bit like an inferior Glass of Water. A Hopeful Transmission is awesome. The spoons are fantastic. Period. UFO is gorgeous, but I can't help feeling that they have done it before, and they called it Now My Feet Won't Touch The Ground. Up With The Birds is odd, but I think I like it. I'm not very keen on Chris' singing in the second part though. But overall, it's definitely their worst album yet. It doesn't flow like I hoped it would. It's just a patchwork of different things. [thanks Tryptophan]

I've been a die hard Coldplay fan ever since AROBTTH. I love Parachutes, X&Y and Viva. And I mean LOVE. But I have to say, I am disappointed by this album. I by far prefer the acoustic tracks and popier tracks than the full out electronic ones. I really loved the singles that were released, and figured the whole album would resemble them. But there are tracks in there that are just filled with so many synths and electronic drum sounds that it's just....where's the band? What happened to the music being the four guys playing, not Chris with a bunch of keyboards and electronic effects? Hurts Like Heaven and Charlie Brown sound too much like Arcade Fire, which isn't a bad thing to sound like someone else. But I feel like I've heard these songs before because Arcade Fire released an album earlier this year and Coldplay seem to have taken a lot of influence from them. Up In Flames has a chord progression for the chorus that has already been used before. I've never been so harsh in my thoughts about a Coldplay album. With every other album, I LOVEd it after the first listen. But with this one, I'm very unsure. I sincerely hope this album grows on me, because I've never skipped Coldplay songs before due to the fact that I didn't like them (which means that I really DO love all of Coldplay's material until now...) [thanks _Broken_Doll_]

More Coldplayer reviews to follow...!

October 2011: Your One-Stop-Shop for Coldplay Info! (Updated: 20th October) [thanks ApproximatelyInfinite]

XOXO Coldplay: RTE (Ireland) talk to Coldplay in the studio

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

They've invented a new word for the title of their latest album, Chris Martin says he's "nasty", and they played with Christy Moore as a tribute to their drummer's mum. Coldplay are easing into superstardom in style writes RTE Ten (Ireland) in an online article after they caught up with the band at the Bakery/Beehive studios. (Full discussion on this new article is at the Coldplay forum now.) [thanks Mimixxx]

The first time I see Chris Martin he is a breathless blur of vivid blues and red bounding down the stairs in Coldplay's studio in Primrose Hill. Martin is dressed in his "band uniform." The new dress code is all dark-coloured heavy shirts and jackets and it follows Coldplay's established rule of new album: new clobber. "I like to wear different clothes when I'm performing", he says, "and doing interviews!"

He may look like he's actually rushing off to 1989 to present a 'zany' yoof TV show but at 34, rock's most sensitive star is a shockingly tanned and healthy specimen, a non-drinking, non-smoking macrobiotic pin-up, exuding the burnished health of the very rich. We are in The Bakery, Coldplay's studio and HQ. All four band members live within two minutes of the place and they played their first ever gig as Coldplay just down the road in The Dublin Castle venue in February 1998.

"When you become successful as a band it can all become quite divisive and what's great about The Bakery is that it's the home of the band", Martin says, leading me back up the stairs to the break-out area. "No one's famous in here; no one reads anyone's bad press. We're just the same group of people we always have been. Nothing we've done outside means anything. It's very calm."

The Bakery is Coldplay's inner sanctum, a bolthole from the madness of being in a huge band. It has the look of a school arts lab, with art books and DVDs (the complete sets of Sherlock Holmes, The West Wing and Get Smart) and a table overflowing with fan mail. "We look at the stuff that's sent to us but it's not like we have to deal with it", says guitarist Jonny Buckland, also in band uniform except for a baseball cap and a friendly grin.

"Sometimes, when you sleep with a fan you think, 'was that the right thing to do?'" adds Martin. "You know what? It probably was. That was a joke by the way."

Martin is in good form and as usual he's deflecting his image as a tortured soul with matey gags and self-effacing comments, but it could all be an act. "I'm actually terrified", he says, folding his long frame into one of the beanbags/chairs that litter the room. "We have to hand in the new album cover on Friday, which is pretty terrifying so we're trying to find things to do so we don't have to hand it in."

The album, the band's fifth, is grandly titled Mylo Xyloto. That's certainly a mouthful. In fact it sounds like a strain of virulent rabbit disease or the villain from a very bad sci-fi movie, but the name has three distinct inspirations - Coldplay wanted some words that didn't already mean anything; they were very influenced by graffiti artists who coin their own nicknames; and, perhaps most importantly, they wanted loads of Os in it. "I'm fully aware that for a few months it will seem ridiculous", says Martin. "It's not acceptable on Scrabble yet and that's what we're aiming for."

The new music lives up to that exotic name. Mylo Xyloto is a bejewelled, exotic-sounding thing. It's lush and tribal sounding and full of the anthemic weepies that have made Coldplay cross-generational mega-sellers. Martin describes the album as a "musical". "Or is it a concept album?" he wonders.

With its overriding themes of escape and surveillance, it might well be. "If this was 1976, we'd say yeah! It's a concept album but because it's 2011, we'll deny it, but if you want to find a story from beginning to end on this album it would be easy to do. There's definitely meant to be an Orwellian love story. To be perfectly honest with you, it is a story album."

When I remark that Snow Patrol are releasing their new album shortly after Coldplay, Martin says, "A clash of the soft rockers. That's what we are." Both acts have certainly ushered in a new era of politeness in rock music and if ever a band knew they weren't cool, it is Coldplay. Nice, yes. Cool, no. "It's not something I'm particularly embarrassed by", Martin says. "I don't want to be known as a bastard. We all are, by the way, nasty people, but I don't think there's any need to show that side of myself to you."

So you've never felt like chucking a flat screen out of hotel window? "Well, there are different degrees of rock, I can't believe I said that! Hahaha!" he laughs, doubling up on the beanbag/couch. "We do let loose but we're never going to be Megadeth except every Thursday at the local rock tribute night. We are nice guys, unless you say something highly offensive, in which case I'll smack you about the chops. You can ask anything you want. I just may not answer it."

So I ask the Gwyneth Paltrow question: what did he think of his wife's recent turn on Glee? "Well, I love Glee. I think she's great", he says, and that's the end of that. Unsurprisingly, he is much more talkative when it comes to Coldplay's surprise guest at this year's Oxegen Festival - Christy Moore. "Christy Moore is one of our heroes and being a commercial whore, I was trying to think of how to make our Oxegen performance special. It meant a lot to us because our drummer Will's mum has passed away and she was a diehard Christy fan."

Their other Irish connection is their undying love of U2. When Coldplay supported them at Slane in 2001, Bono invited Martin and co. to lunch in his place the next day. "So we climbed into a taxi and said take us to Bono's house!" he recalls. "And the driver did!" The last time he met Bono was at Glastonbury in June. "It was great. I was standing in the field watching them play. I felt like a U2 fan from all those years ago." Did you give him any advice? "Isn't that meant to be the other way round?"

Martin is the man who has swept away rock music's right be obnoxious with a new era of trembling sincerity often mistaken by the X Factor generation as genuine emotion. "Should a band like us go on X Factor?" he wonders out loud. "Nah, our songs are too depressing." However, after initial resistance and as "a commercial whore", he relented and let Coldplay songs be demolished by the wrecking ball of Glee. Maybe Gwyneth had a say in that.

For the lead singer of such a massive act, he has also maintained an envious level of anonymity. "I'm famous for my marriage but I don't get recognised that much", he says. "I was in a cab the other day and the guy said, 'oh you look like that singer, the guy from Coldplay'. And I said, yes I'm him. He just started laughing and said he lives around here. We don't ever feel like superstars; we feel famous on stage. We don't do red carpets. I'm fully aware that I'm better in small doses."

Coldplay remain rock's nice guys and Martin sees no conflict between the crass world of Glee and X Factor and striving for meaning like his heroes U2. Maybe it's something to do with being the son of an accountant and a music teacher. They are also all family men with children. "Our kids have had passports since they were three weeks old so they've been everywhere", says Jonny.

"My son's basically been on tour since he was born", Martin says. "He said to me yesterday, 'dad I don't really want to live in one place'. I like being a nomad. I don't want to live in one place either. I like being from earth."

As if on cue, both Martin and Buckland have to go now so they can put their children to bed. How Coldplay is that?

More photos of Coldplay at KROQ (19th October 2011):

Photos courtesy of KROQ Radio @ Flickr