Michael Stipe: "A Band As Good As Coldplay Is A Rarity"

Michael Stipe has heaped praise on Coldplay, saying a band as good and genial as them is a rarity.

He gushed in the BBC6 interview on Saturday: "For me, having been around for 28 years, doing this, I’m thrilled when a band like Coldplay come along. I think great! Here are some contemporaries I respect what they do and they’re really smart fun people great people to be around and they’re very close friends."

Elsewhere in the interview, Coldplay revealed that their fifth studio album will be released in December 2009 to cap off an incredible decade for the four-piece. The band's frontman Chris Martin made the revelations in a very special interview with R.E.M's Michael Stipe on BBC6music over the weekend.

Asked by Stipe if it was true that new material was on the horizon, Martin responded: “We’re going to put an EP out at Christmas called 'Prospekt's March' and we’re going to release an album next December to end the decade."