sebrat

yeah baby! i pray he hasn't given us false hope ...

btw - they mention in the description that the album is "a step, rather than a leap, forward" i'm now banking on a 3- or 4-star review from them, unfortunately

http://home.q4music.com/cgi-bin/q50/track.pl?id=620 it's only 30 seconds, but it sounds BRILLIANT!!!

^ thank you! i'm feeling abit embarrassed for us Kiwis though - #40 is dreadful, we have no taste in music down here

agh i thought this was the proper one with the hip-hop beats!!! :cry: that would've made my day

great news, but it's only jumped due to the AI promotion - people who didn't hear about it on iTunes found out about it via the ad - and I'm betting it'll drop even further next week with no extra promotion (unless they do a full video/physical release) as for the album, pre-orders will count for the opening week chart positions, so expect it to go #1 everywhere in the world with MASSIVE first-week sales - they're using a very dirty technique for this, but it's within the iTunes regulations

as Chris would say, "just be patient" ;) i'm not sure when it's due out, but it's not out yet - anyone have a subscription???

1. Viva La Vida 2. Lovers In Japan 3. Violet Hill 4. Lost (although it's hard to tell) 5. Yes (" ") 6. Life In Technicolour (it needs lyrics!) and in response to the above post, EMI have it under lock and key. literally - its not goin anywhere till June 11th

sorry, perhaps i didn't make myself clear: their decisions for what albums to give good/bad star ratings to are shitty - they gave the new REM 3 stars too, which was bizarre. and i'm all for promoting up-and-coming bands, but alot of music journos these days have decided to go to the wrong extreme, so that anything new is instantly loved and anything by anyone who's done more than 2 albums is automatically considered shit. you could say that helps new bands' careers, but you would be wrong as their first album will be a benchmark for the rest of their career if everyone loves it. i don't think Uncut's a bad magazine, but i do think it focuses on two things far too much: the nostalgia wave, and new talent. if they bothered to properly listen to some of the new stuff by old bands (and they obviously haven't here, otherwise they wouldn't have mislabeled VLV's lyrics) they might actually find that some of it is as good as or even better than the 'new talent' and the albums that our parents listen to.

^ it would've been just one interview i think they can be excused for appearing in pairs just this once, considering how almost every other interview of theirs is as a band

holy s**t!!! this is really good, as in really REALLY good, love the voice and those freaky Asian strings at the beginning

well said, Knotty, I agree with you on most counts. X&Y did feel like formulaic pop music, which was perhaps something they needed to get out of their system; they had experienced some reasonable success with AROBTTH, but I think they wanted to go out there and get all the #1 positions while they still could, which is fair enough I guess. Now, I like to think they've matured slightly and, although they're always going to be focussed on the pop universe, they've perhaps seen it as something to take advantage of and write their own rules for, rather than something that should be followed rigorously. Speed of Sound was all-out pop in my eyes (and ears) in the sense that it was designed to fit in with every other piano-ballad-esque piece of soft rock on the charts at the time. I think they're moving in a different direction and making songs that'll stand out on the charts rather than fit in.

interesting ... my feeling is that it'll probably go back up after AI, but i doubt it'll go higher than #15 hate to sound pessimistic, but i think it's had its time near the top

this is slightly disheartening, but hopefully this'll be the exception rather than the rule for the reviews uncut have a shitty reviews section anyway

so what, he's Phil Harvey?

well a lot of the people who've heard it are saying that VH isn't the best by a long shot - it's the more pop song of the album - though I think there's a possibility Viva La Vida will be the best, or possibly Cemeteries of London or 42. That said, we already know this is gonna be a popular album and possibly one of the best of 2008, though I'm personally reserving judgment until I've heard the whole thing - they could still be bluffing to try and get some copies sold (a la X&Y), but as I've already said I've got a good feeling about this one

so what's the goddamn star-rating??? i'm hoping this'll be their most critically acclaimed album so far - i think Q are lined up for a 5-star review (esp. considering they gave X&Y 5 stars, and this is obviously better) and Rolling Stone seem really positive about it in their preview, so this should be a career-saver for them (i'm hoping) - people are gonna start comparing them to U2, though, thanks to Eno being on board, but i've got a good feeling about this one

reminds me of what U2 did with Vertigo a few years back

^ not on the official UK charts as that includes physical sales as well as airplay (this same thing happened with Speed of Sound, which would've been a #1 if the crazy frog hadn't sold so many copies), but it's SOMETHING at least

^ i dunno, it's supposed to sound like Arcade Fire (who are slow and depressing on paper, but really lively and cool when you actually hear them)

Coldplay help flood hit school Coldplay Four-piece donate money for a new piano May 17, 2008 0 Comments Coldplay news, reviews, video and tour dates Add Coldplay to MyNME Coldplay have donated £3000 to a school hit by last summer's floods. The band gave the cash to St David's School in Moreton, Cotswalds to buy a new piano after the school's instruments were destroyed in the floods. Christina Windridge, a teaching assistant at St David's, said everyone was "so grateful" for the £3072 cheque, reports dotmusic. She added: "The money that we would have had to use to pay for the piano has been used to buy other keyboard equipment." Meanwhile singer Chris Martin has revealed that Kylie Minogue wrote a track for their forthcoming album 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends' but it was cut from the final tracklisting. http://www.nme.com/news/coldplay/36688

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/20830338/page/2 sorry if this has already been posted, but it's vaguely interesting

wow, aside from radiohead this is the only positive pitchfork review i've ever seen

excellent - i've got a subscription to Q so i should be able to get the interview up here early next month

I like this one - very ZooTV with all the interference and stock footage hopefully this is an indication of their new direction; ironic and political