Boring, bankable, inoffensive, easily duplicated - is Coldplay the ultimate 21st-century rock'n'roll band?
Big numbers sure come cheap these days. A year ago, New York's discerning culture filter The Village Voice awarded Coldplay a hefty 7.5 rating for their third album, X&Y, at the end of a review that was nothing less than damning: "Precise, bland and banal, their sensitivity emotionless and their musicality never surprising, they're the definition of a pleasant bore - easy to tune out, impossible to care for."
Even London's often rancorous New Musical Express succumbed to the album's easy listening charms, stamping a giddy nine out of 10 on a review that read more like corporate prospectus than artistic appraisal: "Confident, bold, ambitious, bunged with singles and impossible to contain, X & Y doesn't reinvent the wheel but it does reinforce Coldplay as the band of their time.
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