the_escapist

That was what Chris said!

So the switch from rock to pop was deliberate!

Guy and Will from Coldplay commenting on the news: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgCPg-vDi9M]COLDPLAY EXPRESSES SADNESS OVER R.E.M. CALLING IT QUITS TO MTV NEWS CANADA - YouTube[/ame]

but hopefully that will happen in 30 years, and after they have released at least 10 more LPs.... BTW, here are Guy and Will commenting on the news: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgCPg-vDi9M]COLDPLAY EXPRESSES SADNESS OVER R.E.M. CALLING IT QUITS TO MTV NEWS CANADA - YouTube[/ame]

It is an assumption since it is written like this in the track-by-track rundown: A Hopeful Transmission / Don't Let It Break Your Heart

Can't believe that Up In Flames is so bad as some here are saying (I have not heard it) since it has the Will Champion seal of approval.

So basically it is obvious that the instrumental tracks are Mylo Xyloto, MMIX and A Hopeful Transmission.

If it is "Matt McGinn is Awesome", why is it written as MMIX and not MMIA? I think it really means "Matt McGinn is Xyloto", the boy character of the album. Obviously a joke to bother McGinn.

Yep! I remembered such thread while reading the interview.

I doubt that they didn't put everything into it. Another thing that calms me down is that in this interview, Chris reaffirms that the Will Champion seal of approval is still in force within the band.

This thread should be merged with the other one, created earlier: http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88716

VLV was sort of a major change after X & Y. I think Mylo Xyloto is kind of a continuation of the VLV philosophy. Hence, no need for major inspiration.

GREAT interview. Especially the track-by-track rundown with CM. More Peter Pan references for Charlie Brown, "I was staying at a place with a Wendy House". Major expectations for UFO now. Another acoustic song. After reading this interview I have a feeling that this album will be very good indeed.

It is a very sad day for music today. They were a great band. Go listen their latest album, Collapse into Now. It is a masterpiece. I bet it will be on my list of top 10 albums of 2011.

It's official NOW. It means: Matt McGinn Is Awesome!!! BTW, Matt McGinn is a Coldplay Roadie who recently published a book. Source: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=2&storycode=1046690&c=2

Coldplay exclusive: band talk to MW about new album September 23 2011 By Stephen Jones When Chris Martin hinted the last Coldplay album might just be exactly that – their last – producer Brian Eno had other ideas. Guitarist Jonny Buckland explains: “Brian’s a very inspirational character. He wrote us a letter actually after we finished the last album saying, ‘That was good, but I think we can go further, we can do more’ and so, in a way, he got the ball rolling for this.” Drummer Will Champion adds: “Chris always has a knack of saying that this could be our last album but at the time, after we’ve just finished an album, it genuinely does feel like there’s nothing left in the tank – there’s no more ideas, so the idea of recording another record is terrifying.” It is to Eno’s credit that he has eked more mileage from the Coldplay juggernaut as Mylo Xyloto, the band’s fifth studio album, is arguably their most exciting, best flowing and enthralling listen since 2002’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Threatening more potentially classic Coldplay hit singles than its predecessor, 2008’s Viva La Vida And Death To All His Friends, it is not only likely to confirm their position as the world’s biggest band but potentially better its 9 million worldwide sales. Chatting at their Bakery Studio in Hampstead – having just finalised the tracklisting over lunch - the band appear relaxed although admittedly nervous how the world will respond to a record which began life as a “quiet acoustic record”, at one point was intended to be a soundtrack to a Yellow Submarine-style animated film (abandoned because it would take five years to make) and now sees life as a progressive synth-infused pop “concept album” that still rocks; Buckland’s guitar is arguably more prominent than on previous outings. “It’s about people who are lost in a big scary environment and find each other as a form of getting through it. It’s a love story basically.” Chris Martin Bassist Guy Berryman reveals: “It was going to be a kind of soundtrack album to a film we were writing which had a story through it and we got quite far down the line with designing characters and then we abandoned that idea and moved into a different direction, retaining elements of the acoustic album and the soundtrack album, so what we’ve ended up with is an album that we arrived at in quite an unusual sort of way. So it’s kind of a hotchpotch of all those different phases.” Frontman Chris Martin – who last week revealed to Music Week how the Rihanna collaboration on future single Princess Of China came about – does not baulk at the idea of describing Mylo Xyloto as a concept album; indeed against a climate of downloading individual tracks he says they deliberately set out to make a body of work which fans would want to listen to in its entirety. “I think if you wanted to use that word you wouldn’t be wrong,” Martin says. “It’s about people who are lost in a big scary environment and find each other as a form of getting through it. It’s a love story basically. But it hasn’t got many dragons or mountains, which I think is what people associate concept albums with. “We really felt like the album is so under threat as a format that we should really make an effort to really tie it all together. And even if they don’t want to own it all, it makes sense as one thing, should anyone be interested in that. So if you want to find a narrative through it you can, which is something that we just enjoyed doing.” Production was entrusted to their established team: Markus Dravs, Daniel Green, Rik Simpson and Eno who is credited with “enoxification and additional composition” with former manager Phil Harvey – the band’s unofficial “fifth member” – in a crucial creative director role. Berryman adds: “There were elements that were the same but it feels like a completely different page.” “This has been a long while in the making but the band came off a huge touring schedule straight into writing and playing around with songs...” Parlophone president Miles Leonard Indeed, recording sessions have not just included time experimenting at The Bakery with Buckland noting: “We can spend weeks on end with Brian doing songs based on campanology or, you know, barber shop” – and their other nearby larger studio The Beehive. Instead they have worked on the album while on tour in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, where they completed the album just last month (see track by track). Champion adds: “It was crucial really because we could see that the deadline was getting closer and closer and those hours that we had in those studios around the world were really priceless.” Parlophone president Miles Leonard, the band’s A&R man, agrees the band have made a benchmark album. “This has been a long while in the making but the band came off a huge touring schedule straight into writing and playing around with songs and that’s where Brian comes in and deconstructs songs and rebuilds them again. Then someone like Markus comes in and takes charge and gets behind the desk and delivers that rock sound,” he says. Meticulous planning meetings between the record company and management for a minimum 18-month campaign – possibly taking the band to yet uncharted territories including South Africa, Eastern Europe, south-east Asia and China – have occurred weekly since February. Leonard stresses, despite having 50 million album sales under their belt, nothing with Coldplay is taken for granted. He is particularly complimentary about 3D Management’s attention to detail and approach to the two singles prior to the album release (see box) – and especially allowing the band to preview new material on tour during the summer including during their Glastonbury headline where they delivered U2 a masterclass in how to enthral a festival crowd. Leonard says: “We see it as an advantage, not a disadvantage, to have more music out there. Nowadays people need to hear more than one single to be convinced to purchase a record.” But, frankly, it is likely to be the album purchase of 2011 for which many will need least convincing.. - POP APPROACH: THE ALBUM'S UNUSUAL SETUP Against a backdrop of declining sales for rock bands, Coldplay manager Dave Holmes risked a “pop approach” to release two singles – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (June 3) and Paradise (September 12) – ahead of their new album on October 24 in an unusual setup. He explains: “When I know we have enough songs for the album, I start thinking about the ideal time for release and in this case I had a non-traditional approach which I thought about, taking a really long setup. We decided on a single out in June – no talking about the album during an “around the world buzz gig tour” if you will – as they test-drive the new material. I said, ‘Let’s just let the music do the talking.’” "I wanted to be grass roots. I said to them, ‘You have to be out there wearing two hats as you tour and finish the record.’ But people these days have such a short attention span – I see rock acts put out one single and then one album and then it disappears and then in pop they take two singles... I suppose they have to persuade people to buy the album. But by taking that couple of songs approach you feel engaged, and there’s not a lot of that going on with rock records at the moment.” While Holmes – now entering his 11th year of managing the band – agrees that his sense of excitement around Mylo Xyloto is reminiscent of that prior to A Rush Of Blood To The Head, his ambition with the record is not just to sell more albums. “I do think this will do better than the last, I would like it to do better, but it’s not just about sales. It’s about having more songs which stand the test of time. It would be great to walk away from this campaign with more songs in their repertoire.” MYLO XYLOTO: Exclusive track-by-track rundown with Chris Martin 01 MYLO XYLOTO It means whatever you want it to mean. [To me] it means a freedom of expression and you can think up new words if you want to. There’s still things that you can invent and words beginning with X are few and far between so we thought we might try and add one. 02 HURTS LIKE HEAVEN That’s the opening track, really. That’s kind of our call to arms to each other. I think it’s calisthenics musically for us. It warms you up. 03 PARADISE If we ever won The X Factor, that’s the song we might sing. We never will, of course, but that’s what we would do. I think, if truth be told, we’re not really handsome enough to go on it. 04 CHARLIE BROWN This is the only song we ever wrote in a doll’s house. I was staying in a place with a Wendy House and I turned it into a studio ‘cos my daughter didn’t like it. And I came back from a Bruce Springsteen show in LA and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s see if anything came out of that day.’ 05 US AGAINST THE WORLD The whole thing is supposed to be a kind of story so they all fit together and that is the two characters from the previous two songs when they meet each other. It’s about meeting someone you love and feeling powerful, when you meet someone and suddenly everything feels alright again. 06 M.M.I.X. It doesn’t stand for 2009. It came from (long-serving guitar tech) “Mat McGinn is awesome” so I don’t know why the fuck it got called that. It has nothing to do with anything… it stands for nothing; it’s just a collection of letters. 07 EVERY TEARDROP IS A WATERFALL So the central theme of the record – Paradise is kind of about this as well – is trying to turn bad things into good things somehow. We as a band have been through some funny incidents in terms of people being aggressive towards us or whatever. And a lot of the record is fuelled by a kind of fire which comes from turning that negativity into positivity. And I think everyone in their life has something like that. 08 MAJOR MINUS That’s like a Bond villain of a song. A bad cousin of the album. It’s the nasty one. 09 UFO That’s the acoustic… that was the first song written for the album actually and the chord sequence in it pops up a few times. And that’s a kind of prayer “times” kind of song. There’s a lot of feeling lost on the album but also being found as well and that’s very much a bit of both. 10 PRINCESS OF CHINA (FEAT. RIHANNA) I actually sort of wrote it for Rihanna and then I liked it too much. And then it became clear it was like a sort of back and forth between a couple. It took about a year to pluck up the courage but eventually I asked her and she was not unwilling. I played it for her on piano in Los Angeles. That was quite nerve-wracking, I’ve got to say. And so she said, ‘Oh okay, yeah!’ 11 UP IN FLAMES We wrote that about four weeks ago and then we recorded it in five countries in seven days. That was fun. That was when we knew we could finish the record because Will – who’s the hardest to please of the band – when he heard that he said, ‘Okay, we can finish now’ because I think he liked the space on it. 12 A HOPEFUL TRANSMISSION/DON’T LET IT BREAK YOUR HEART Well, I think we wanted to do an album this time with a happy ending and I think we’ve actually done it, which we never thought we’d do. For whatever reason it is, it’s happened and that was very late in the day and it’s nice that song ‘cos you just hit everything as hard as possible – which for a band like Coldplay is a very pleasurable thing. 13 UP WITH THE BIRDS That was when we were sort of thinking about a story that seemed like the end of a movie type thing (http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=2&storycode=1046690&c=2)

Guy Berryman has revealed that Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto was originally planned as a soundtrack album. The 33-year-old bass guitarist admitted that the idea for the LP had progressed a long way before the band decided to abandon it. Speaking to Music Week, he declared: "It was going to be a kind of soundtrack album to a film we were writing which had a story through it. "We got quite far down the line with designing characters and then we abandoned that idea and moved into a different direction, retaining elements of the acoustic album and the soundtrack album. "So what we've ended up with is an album that we arrived at in quite an unusual sort of way. So it's kind of a hotchpotch of all those different phases." Frontman Chris Martin recently said that Mylo Xyloto could be Coldplay's final album. However, playing down his comments, drummer Will Champion added: "Chris always has a knack of saying that this could be our last album. "But at the time, after we've just finished an album, it genuinely does feel like there's nothing left in the tank - there's no more ideas, so the idea of recording another record is terrifying." (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a341629/coldplay-bassist-guy-berryman-mylo-xyloto-was-soundtrack-album.html)

so the show is airing tomorrow?

I guess these days The Oracle is not Debs (since she is in Kenya). Maybe Vicki.

that's it? no interview with Letterman?

I am sure many of you have already said this, but let me tell you two things: the Us Against the World performance was AMAZING! unbelievable! This is why they have to make an acoustic album! And I was impressed with the Hurts Like Heaven studio bit at the beginning as they were entering into the studio. I think that song is going to be immense!!!

this!

I guess Chris is right in some sense - musicians are free to do whatever music they want - but I guess that some people in this forum are right in the sense that a band has a duty to please their loyal fan base who have been supporting them since they started... After all, they would not be half of what they are, with the great loyal fans they have.

In the link referring to the interview, there is also a little video. If someone in the US can rip it, we all would be very thankful.

Reaching a certain level of stardom and popularity brings with it all kinds of perks: private jets, free clothes from top designers, the best seats at the most exclusive restaurants and, you know, the money, the adoration of millions, and all that. But for Coldplay, a decade's worth of success and hard work also meant that when it came time to name their upcoming fifth album, the group wasn't worried that the somewhat bizarre title they came up with might confuse their biggest fans. "That's why we called it such a strange thing, Mylo Xyloto," explained singer Chris Martin backstage at the Austin City Limits festival over the weekend. Mylo Xyloto is a mouthful, and so are these anagrams for the album title we came up with on the Newsroom blog. "We did take a gun and kind of shoot it right at our shoes [by calling it Mylo Xyloto]," he added. "It's just an attempt to ... it just feels fresh to us, it's new. It doesn't mean anything except that [album's] music." And while neither Martin nor drummer Will Champion would go as far as to explain exactly what the title of the album (due October 25) refers to, they did confirm that it was pretty much the only name they considered all along. "It sort of has a nice appearance to it," Martin continued, "with all those O's. We had it on one of our many lists for about two years and for all the other titles that were suggested, it kept winning." In fact, Martin and Champion couldn't even remember what the other potential titles were, but they both swore that all were "even worse" than the cryptic, if oddly alluring, one they settled on. "And so we [accepted that], 'Well, this will be tough to explain.' But then we thought well, but maybe in the old days before anyone knew what a Snickers was, that word would have sounded weird as well, or Google ... or Yahoo! So why not try and invent something new?" (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1671069/coldplay-album-title-mylo-xyloto.jhtml)