MasoKnight

Of course, you conveniently didn't link to your overall plays, where Radiohead obliterates everyone else. :P

Pitchfork Album Review Coldplay LeftRightLeftRightLeft [self-Released; 2009] 6.8/10 When most of the world first met Chris Martin, he was a sad dude wandering around a beach in his windbreaker and singing about everything being yellow. If Coldplay started out as one of many earnest post-Britpop bands in the late 1990s, they've beaten the odds to become one of the biggest bands in the world, the kind whose album releases become events and whose impact reaches beyond the confines of a genre, country, or audience. Coldplay are, in short, the kind of band that can give away a live album gratis. LeftRightLeftRightLeft is free to anyone with a ticket at their live shows and anyone with an internet connection at their web site. While I'm sure there's a suit somewhere tearing his hair out over this, it's not quite as ballsy as Prince giving away free copies of Musicology or bundling Planet Earth with the London Daily Mail. On the other hand, you might want to listen to LRLRL more than once. Seriously, they could be selling this shit. After all, Live 2003 got a full release complete with a DVD, and it doesn't even approach the confidence and dynamics of LRLRL, which showcases a band much more comfortable and commanding on stage. All the big moments they've tried to create in the studio finally come alive on these tracks: those tectonic shifts that push opener "Glass of Water"; the mechanistic jam of "Clocks", especially when Guy Berryman re-creates the vocal melody on bass against Martin's cascades of piano notes; the communal grandiosity of "Viva la Vida". Despite a fairly conservative tracklist, LRLRL sounds like the band finally coming into its own, presenting as a live act rather than a studio band. Much of the credit goes to the audience-- those thousands of fans singing devotedly along with Martin and exploding during the big moments. Maybe that's why LRLRL is a giveaway: The crowd may be legally obligated to co-billing, especially that woman singing herself hoarse for a few notes on "The Hardest Part/Postcards from Far Away". Here's a quick before-and-after demonstration: The opening lyrics to "42" are some of his worst, and Martin alone can't save them. But hearing him sing those same inane lyrics with a couple thousand people backing him up make that mood-setting melody sound pretty good actually. LRLRL owes its life to the audience, whose handclaps give "Viva la Vida" the sense of heraldry missing from the album version and whose insistent singing on "Fix You" defuses the song's Messianic rumblings. Of course, the crowd can't rehab all of Coldplay's material. "The Hardest Part/Postcards from Far Away" is a middling piano ballad that feints toward "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" territory but runs straight for Billy Joel. And ending with "Death and All His Friends", especially after "Fix You", seems particularly anticlimactic. Martin no longer has to cajole the crowd into participating, as he did on Live 2003; instead, the band seems utterly confident the audience will hang on every word and note. Even so, he does deliver some overeager stage banter. "This is the moment in the concert when we show you how good our band really could have been," he says by way of introducing drummer Will Champion, who sings the short, strummy "Death Will Never Conquer". Champion does a fine job, sounding late-Poguish and completely at ease, but Martin's comment seems little more than hollow self-deprecation, only pointing to his reputation as the band's handsome, actress-bagging, Jeff Buckley-copping frontman. And just try not to wince when he alters the lyrics to "Fix You" and renders the song self-referential: "five hundred meters from the band at the Coldplay show." You can't touch the hem of his garment from that distance, but those are still pretty good seats. Coldplay are the biggest band in the world because they believe themselves to be, which is the kind of titanic self-actualization typically associated with salesmen and self-help books. But they are humble in their hubris: Not only do they provide a service-- essentially giving listeners what they want-- but in this case, they're doing it without charge. Ironically, those contradictory qualities mean the band may be wasted in a studio, Eno notwithstanding. LRLRL suggests that Coldplay songs truly live only in vast concert halls and smallish arenas, where they are performed for, and arguably by, a captivated audience. — Stephen M. Deusner, June 1, 2009 http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13074-leftrightleftrightleft/

How might you have ordered Coldplay's album tracks? Here's my take on Parachutes: 1. Don't Panic 2. Spies 3. High Speed 4. Parachutes 5. Shiver 6. Trouble 7. We Never Change 8. Yellow 9. Sparks 10. Everything's Not Lost (Life is for Living)

Sgt. Pepper's AROBTTH

I definitely supported Adam. He's the better singer, performer, and musician. But Kris's style and appearance simply appeal to more folks. It's that simple.

Chris said on a radio interview yesterday that they may tour South America in the fall. Link in this thread: http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3043921#post3043921

South American tour?

Kid A AROBTTH

Yellow on VH1.

dfit, I'm going to guess the ones you're missing are LiJ and DAAHF (plus maybe a bonus?).

Seriously. Maybe we were spoiled by the crowds in LRLRL. :P

Pretty, pretty awesome. After actually hearing it, I find it harder to complain about the tracklisting :P (Although I still think GPASUYF/Talk and LiJ should've made the cut....)

The Zombie Locke is a puppet of Man #2 from the beginning of the episode, (probably) just like Christian.

Ah. I look at it as an ending that opens the door to a dozen different possibilities for next season. Thus, Cliffhanger.

They've played X&Y. I think the only song from the album X&Y that hasn't been done live is Twisted Logic.

Come again?

I will never understand the "you're not a true fan because you found them on top 40 radio" argument.

Have both. Like both.

AROBTTH Kid A

Someone once said that this album is like a horror film in music form, and I think that's quite accurate. It's uniquely and satisfyingly dark.

But VLV is an attempt to shed the "bland" label....

One ticket for St. Louis show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.... It's listed on Stubhub for face value + fees, but I'd sell for less on here. It's an excellent seat. Right in the middle, about 35 rows back. https://www.stubhub.com/coldplay-tickets/coldplay-maryland-heights-verizon-wireless-amphitheater-st-louis-7-24-2009-795398/?ticket_id=186987984

Of Montreal does put on a pretty sick show. They performed at my college last year, and it was damn good.

I would've cut What If, The Hardest Part, and Til Kingdom Come. I would've significantly altered Fix You and X&Y, and then changed the tracklisting.

Q1 The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Q2 Sigur Ros - Takk... Q3 radiohead - in rainbows (impossible choice) Q4 Coldplay - A rush of blood to the head (impossible choice)