Planetrock.com.au sat down for an exclusive interview with Coldplay's Will Champion and Guy Berryman.Stay tuned for the full video interview, but they've given us a little taster to keep you going - Will and Guy discuss Coldplay's brand new single 'Violet Hill': here [Thanks Gary]

Meanwhile, Take 40's UK correspondent caught up with a couple of the boys from Coldplay recently as they geared up to release their new single 'Violet Hill'. We'll have the full interview online for you in the coming weeks, but listen to parts of the interview below...

On the new single 'Violet Hill'.... and they also asked them what they were trying to achieve with the new album 'Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends'... listen here

Blender magazine is giving you the opportunity to ask Coldplay's Chris Martin any question you want. Look for the answer in a future issue of Blender. You can submit your question here

Don't forget, following news that Coldplay will be performing on Today on June 27th 2008, the show has announced that they will be airing questions fired to the band. You can now submit your questions online here.

Curious about the meaning behind their new album? Do you wonder what they do before a show? E-mail your questions for the band! Don't forget Coldplay will hit Rockefeller Plaza the morning of Friday, June 27th for a live performance on the Today show.

Have you already sent in a question for the band? Why not share it with the Coldplaying messageboard (and read all the other submissions) here [thanks WCfan]

Check out the 2008 section of Coldplay.com for a new star.

Coldplay's fourth album, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is now available to pre-order from iTunes Stores worldwide.

What's more, anyone who pre-orders will be able to download the album's title track, Viva La Vida, immediately.

More on this star here onwards [thanks Lore]

Read the full chronology, including all Prospekt updates, at WikiColdplay

So far... 4% of the puzzle has been unlocked.

Keep up with progress here. No idea what we're talking about? Then click here [thanks ravrat, Jpw48, Zemy101 & BostonSportsTD].

We have unlocked the following pictures (in order): 1. Reign Of Love & 2. Cemeteries Of London

P.S. Those who have seen and/or heard 'Life In Technicolor' please keep it to yourself until it's been officially unlocked... thanks!

This week's edition of NME is now available, and with it Coldplay's vinyl 7" single. Here's a excerpt from the magazine article:

Chris Martin said the sales figures for their first three albums can't be topped, so the group decided that they didn't need to make "big songs" on Viva La Vida.

"We thought, 'We can't possibly get any bigger, let's just get better," Martin told NME. "We're actually a bit scared because we've taken the safety off this time. It's not like we've got any songs on the record where we think, 'Oh, it's OK because we know the big songs are on there', we had some of those, but we took them off. We decided it was time to push what the band could do forward."

More on this article (and see the full sized scans) here [thanks jpw48]

Coldplay and ESPN have signed a marketing deal that will have the rock band promoting soccer and the sports network promoting the band's new album.

The marketing campaign announced Wednesday will use Coldplay's music in promotions for ESPN's coverage of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, which is scheduled for June 7-29 in Austria and Switzerland. ESPN has also agreed to incorporate music from Coldplay's new release, "Viva La Vida," into game and studio production. The CD is due out June 12.

ESPN has the broadcast rights for the tournament in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and India. The matches will be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNHD, ESPN2HD, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN360.com.

More on this breaking story here [thanks zsub & Fixed]

Coldplay's "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" recently went up from pre-order from Apple's iTunes store, and those who make the pledge for the album will get immediate access to the title track. Viva La Vida (individual track), is now available for purchase on iTunes at a price of €0.99.

The new album comes with an acoustic version of the new song "Lost!" When you pre-order, the title track will download immediately and you'll receive an additional acoustic version of "Lovers In Japan" when it's released on June 17.

To hear the title track, as purchased from iTunes, one will essentially have to fork over $9.99, and the cut unfortunately comes encoded with DRM at 128 kilobits per second.

What do you think of the song? Listen to it here and tell us! [thanks Shawndorman]

But how does it sound? Pretty good, and it is a stronger cut than "Violet Hill." It opens with a triumphant string melody, and it's the violins that carry much of the song. It's a cleaner-sounding cut than the more aggressive "Violet Hill," but it still glides along with an urgency not heard often enough in Coldplay's music.

By tapping producer Brian Eno, comparisons to U2 will be inevitable, and "Viva La Vida" brings a bit of U2 grandeur with its epic build, but it still colors the song with enough fresh sounds to demand repeated listens. Things get rolling with a frisky violin, and Chris Martin puts it in check with a commanding vocal turn, singing "I used to roll the dice / Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes."

Moments later the song gets more interesting, with a flash of rhythm momentarily sending a more electronic-sounding beat to the background. References to Catholicism grace the song, and Martin repeatedly declares that Saint Peter won't be calling his name.

But never mind the biblical nods. The song further reveals the Coldplay of "Viva La Vida" to be a hungrier, more interesting band. Indeed, as the song builds, strings disappear into a twittering of electronic atmospheres that bridge the verses.

Even the addition of church bells sound off just enough to not be corny. As the song comes to a close, a jaunty piano helps carry some background "whoa-whoas," and there's not a guitar in sight. Instead, "Viva La Vida" is swift-moving minimalist orchestra.

The lyrics to Viva La Vida are as follows:

I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

Now in the morning I sleep alone

Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice

Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes

Listened as the crowd would sing

Now the old king is dead long live the king

One minute I held the key

Next the walls were closed on me

And I discovered that my castles stand

Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing

Roman cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror my sword and shield

Missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain

Once you'd gone there was never

Never an honest word

And that was when I ruled the world

It was a wicked and wild wind

Blew down the doors to let me in

Shattered windows and the sound of drums

People couldn’t believe what I’d become

Revolutionaries wait

For my head on a silver plate

Just a puppet on a lonely string

Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing

Roman cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror my sword and shield

My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can’t explain

I know St Peter won’t call my name

Never an honest word

But that was when I ruled the world

Hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing

Roman cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror my sword and shield

My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can’t explain

I know St Peter won’t call my name

Never an honest word

But that was when I ruled the world

Triple M (Melbourne) has an exclusive interview with Coldplay, to talk to them about the new album Viva La Vida. Soon you will be able to see the exclusive video interview, but for now here's a sneak peak with some audio and photos.

Download the interview here and here [right click, save target as]

More on this story here [thanks be my green eyes & eFlat]

Last week’s phenomenally successful free single download was just the start, claim Coldplay management and label.

Coldplay have not finished with surprises in the run-up to the release of Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, with a “significant major initiative” planned around another single [42 maybe?] taken from the album on May 21. With the band recording additional material that did not make the album’s final cut, Parlophone is also promising a treat for fans, with a number of other non-album tracks eventually seeing the light of day. [seperate releases, one for Viva La Vida and one for Death And All His Friends perhaps?]

Downloads of the giveaway digital single Violet Hill hit around the 1.5m mark at the end of last week, and the band’s management company, LA based 3D Management, and record company Parlophone are now ratcheting up the marketing campaign to follow the free download that started on April 29.

Coldplay’s manager Dave Holmes is already promising something special for the third week in May. “It’s one pretty significant thing, although I can’t afford to have it get out,” he says. “You’ll understand why when I tell you, but it is a major initiative with huge global reach.”

More on this story here onwards [thanks sebile, Stefan-C8, ApproximatelyInfinite & a2iel]

Free with this week's issue of NME magazine comes a 7" single and a stunning new track from Coldplay. Featuring 'Violet Hill' from the forthcoming album 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends', plus the never-heard-before (until-yesterday) track 'A Spell A Rebel Yell', the vinyl release is a world exclusive.

See this week's NME magazine for the first new interview with Chris Martin and guitarist Jonny Buckland, plus the iconic new photo shoot done by NME with all four band members. Just to whet the appetite, below you can see one of the photos.

More on this story here [thanks cephaus]

Coldplay will announce a new marketing campaign later this month, which their manager says will have “a huge global reach”. Dave Holmes, the band’s long time partner, said the idea was “pretty significant” and that he couldn’t “afford to have it get out.”

Holmes’ announcement comes after it was revealed that the band’s new single ‘Violet Hill’ was downloaded 2 million times for free from their website. The single, which has now been released as a paid-for digital-download, was available to download from Coldplay’s website for one week.

According to Music Week, the band are currently recording material which didn’t make it onto their forthcoming album, ‘Viva La Vida’ - which is out on June 12th. The songs are expected to be released by the band’s record label EMI alongside the new album. As previously reported, Coldplay will play three free shows this June in Barcelona, New York and London. Tickets will only be available via the band’s website.

What do you think Coldplay are up to? Discuss this story here

2 million people downloaded Coldplay’s new single ‘Violet Hill’ while it was available as a free download, it's been revealed.

The song, which is the first off the band’s new album ‘Viva La Vida’, was uploaded onto the band’s website last Tuesday (April 29th). Had the song been chart eligible it would have outsold last week’s Top-40 four times over. The song, which was released officially on digital-download today (May 5th), is no longer available to download for free.

As previously reported, the band will play three free shows – in Barcelona, New York and London - this June in support of their new album.

More on this here

Coldplay's new vinyl single B-side song 'A Spell A Rebel Yell' will get its debut play on Zane Lowe's show on BBC Radio One tonight, from 7pm (BST), according to the station, and The Sun. More on this here onwards [thanks Vector]

As far as I can see

All time and circuitry

Is wrong

As far as poetry

Sit down and sing to me

A song

It's/Cos' all I want in this world

All I want in this world

Is for you to come home

A spell a rebel yell

A spell

Soldier come home to me

You've been away from me

So long

All I want in this world

All I want and deserve

Is for you to come home

A spell a rebel yell (8x)

You can discuss the lyrics for the new song here [thanks ApproximatelyInfinite, MasoKnight, Zemy101]

For those who live outside the UK you can listen to the BBC Radio One webstream via the Coldplaying toolbar - which you can download here prior to tonight's first play of A Spell A Rebel Yell.

US visits to Coldplay.com increased 1,800% since the band's new single, Violet Hill, was released for free online, Hitwise said after comparing the daily US visits for April 29, 2008 versus April 27, 2008, MarketingCharts reports.

On April 29, 2008, the day the single was released on Coldplay.com, the website ranked as the most visited website among the Bands and Artists category. A little more than 1 out of every 40 visits to Bands and Artists category went to Coldplay's website.

Two days before the release of the single, the website ranked number 305 among Bands and Artists websites from more than 500 websites in the category. "While publishers become increasingly concerned about the cannibalization of their revenue stream, experiments by Coldplay and Radiohead at a minimum prove that free music downloads provide added publicity to increase awareness for album releases," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research, Hitwise.

Those seeking the single were emailed a link for the download. More than half - 52.33% - of visits to Coldplay.com came from a website in the Email Services category on April 29, 2008, indicating that fans were eager to receive the download, Hitwise said.

Radiotimes.com has announced an exclusive broadcast of Coldplay's new video for the forthcoming single, Violet Hill. It will be broadcast on UK's Channel 4 on May 13 at 11.05pm.

Coldplay recently arrived in Sicily, Italy to shoot the video for the first single, Violet Hill, taken from Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. It was originally thought that only 'Prospekt' was present in Italy, but Italian media has confirmed that it was the whole band, ready to film a video for the first single of the fourth album. The film set had been a very restricted area, and is located in Enna (the Italian city at the highest altitude), near Nicoletti lake.

4 Music:Coldplay: Video Exclusive - Tuesday 13 May

11:05pm - 11:10pm

Channel 4

Exclusive first screening of Coldplay's new single Violet Hill from their forthcoming album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.

VIDEO Plus+: 291955

More on this here

The Los Angeles Times has posted an interesting article, using Violet Hill as a starting point for comparisons between Coldplay and U2. Here's what they wrote:

In their most starry-eyed moments, partisans of Coldplay have envisioned the English band as a potential successor to U2's throne. Well, the group has taken at least a small step in that direction. Its new album "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends," which comes out June 17, was co-produced by Brian Eno, a principal player in U2's studio team.

The first single, which was released to radio and as a free (for one week) download on Coldplay's website Tuesday, is "Violet Hill," and while one track might or might not define the entire album, this one does send a signal that the group has broken out of an increasingly confining formula.

It opens with a slow-building orchestral/electronic mass, a meditative moment that's interrupted suddenly -- almost abruptly -- by Chris Martin singing an ominous line: "Was a long and dark December/ From the rooftops I remember there was snow, white snow."

Read the full article here

Carl Barat has criticised the decision by Coldplay this week to release their new single for free online.

'Violet Hill' has been available to download completely free from Tuesday at coldplay.com, and will be withdrawn on Tuesday, when it goes on general sale. The band had hoped following in the footsteps of Radiohead and Nine inch Nails, both of whom released music for free in recent months, would drum up interest in their forthcoming fourth album 'Vida La Vida'. However, Dirty Pretty Things frontman Carl says it simply makes the climate a tougher place for smaller bands.

He says, "You could say they (Coldplay) were jumping on the bandwagon a bit. You can't escape the fact that big name, big money bands who release their stuff for free are harming the scene. The industry is struggling financially and this is like missile after missile. How do new bands compete?"

More on this story here

In this week's NME magazine, Chris Martin talks about the bands new base, where they can avoid the paparazzi he hates. He has revealed that Coldplay have hired a new headquarters for the band, specifically designed to deflect attention from the group and help them avoid photographers.

Shifting topics Martin explained how Coldplay ended up working with the legendary Eno. "It was Brian's idea," he revealed. "I would often meet up with him for tea and start playing tabla machines...and that just turned into a years worth of production."

The band also revealed how Arcade Fire influenced the new album: "After he worked on 'Neon Bible' Win Butler told us, 'You should work with this guy, [long time Eno-collaborator] Markus Dravs - he'll whip you lot into shape!' " explained Martin.

More on this article here and here [thanks mimixxx & Dejan]

Read the small print!

A 30-second clip of the forthcoming promotional song 'A Spell A Rebel Yell' is available online. You can listen to the clip for a limited time here.

The lyrics sung by Chris Martin in the clip are as follows:

'It's far, it's poetry / Sit down and sing to me a song / 'Cause all I want in this world...'

A free Coldplay 7-inch vinyl single will be given away with the issue of NME that comes out on May 7. The vinyl will include 'A Spell A Rebel Yell', and won't be available anywhere else. Krissi Murison is deputy editor at the NME and she says Chris Martin contacted them direct. "He called up our editor one night from the studio, he said 'I have just written this song and it's the pefect song. NME readers are gonna love it, we have to get it out there.'"

To ensure you get your copy of the exclusive Coldplay vinyl you can pre-order your issue from NME.COM at the NME online shop. The album, the follow-up to 2005's 'X&Y', will be released on June 16.

What are your first impressions of A Spell A Rebel Yell? You can discuss the clip here [thanks ravrat]

What happens when great art mixes with the Google homepage? We discover more Coldplay 'Viva La Vida' artwork, that's what.

iGoogle, the new service from the world's leading search engine, Google, has opened up the world to Coldplay's new artwork for the fourth album, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. Included in the images are Cemeteries Of London, Postcards From Far Away, Lost!, Reign Of Love as well as lyrics for some of the new songs.

Below are some newfound captions, but click here for all the themes [thanks Mister Snig]

Coldplay’s new single 'Violet Hill' was downloaded for free by over 600,000 people in the 24 hours since it was made available at 12.15pm on Tuesday (April 29).

In the first 12 hours it was downloaded by 300,000. This figure doubled overnight as other countries logged on to Coldplay.com, the source of the free download. The single will be available free for a week and will then be released as a paid-for digital single on May 6.

Meanwhile, Last.fm have been keen to point out that the Coldplay figures are a record, exceeding even the most popular track from the Radiohead album that was streamed for free back in October. That notched up 22,000 listens in 12 hours.

Last.fm's figures are based, obviously, on the traffic that is scrobbled among Last.fm users, so these are only a minimum figure. But in 23 hours, there have already been 33,523 listens of Violet Hill - equivalent to 1 listen every 2.4 seconds. That's despite Coldplay's server wobbling about a bit under the weight of requests yesterday. Last.fm has already claimed a significant 119% rise in the number of click-throughs to Amazon's retail site since it introduced free streaming for the big four music labels.

More on this here

Chris Martin calls the rapper the best musician on the planet...

Coldplay front man Chris Martin has defended rap star Jay-Z's scheduled appearance at Glastonbury. The choice of Jay-Z as the headliner for the festival has been much criticised - something Martin describes as "embarrassing". Speaking on BBC Radio 1, Martin who has previously worked with Jay-Z said that Coldplay didn't need to headline the festival because Jay-Z was "the best musician on the planet".

"I find it pretty embarrassing, all the palaver [over Jay-Z's booking]." He added: "We recently came back to England to find all this hoo-hah, grandpas complaining about things they don't know about. Coldplay not playing and Jay-Z playing is exactly what needs to happen for the world. He's the best rapper in the world."

Glastonbury starts from 27 June 2008 and runs until 29 June 2008 at Worthy Farm, Somerset. Coldplay's new single Violet Hill is out now.

Radio 1 have posted online photos of Coldplay's Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland when they popped by with the world exclusive of their new single Violet Hill. They brought in the band's new single personally for its world exclusive on Jo Whiley's mid-morning show. You can see all the pictures here

You can see the exclusive video of Coldplay in the studio, courtesy of Jo Whiley's YouTube channel, here [thanks mimixxx]

Coldplay Shop in the UK have revealed the full extent of the tracklisting for the new album, 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends'. This includes Chinese Sleep Chant and The Escapist.

The album will be available from June 12 in both Gatefold Wallet (limited edition) and Jewelcase Version. The tracklisting is as follows:

More on this here [thanks Stefan-C8]

Tracklisting:

1. Life In Technicolor

2. Cemeteries Of London

3. Lost!

4. 42

5. Lovers In Japan

Reign Of Love

Lovers In Japan

6. Yes

Yes

Chinese Sleep Chant

7. Viva La Vida

8. Violet Hill

9. Strawberry Swing

10. Death And All His Friends

The Escapist

Death And All His Friends

Coldplay have revealed that they will play a free gig in Barcelona. Speaking to Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 1, frontman Chris Martin revealed that the band were set to announce details of the show soon.

Coldplay had recently announced that they would play two free gigs in June, one in New York and one in London around the release of new album 'Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends'.

"We're doing a concert in Madison Square Garden for free, which no one's ever done before because it costs, like, a million pounds to play there," he said. "We're paying for it because we want to be generous for a bit, before we're reminded that we have to get back to being on a record contract. We're going to do one in Barcelona as well, but we haven't announced that yet."

More on the Barcelona date here