sebrat

You've got it spot on, mate, I can't even listen to Parachutes and AROBTTH these days because they are just slightly wussy (can anyone deny that?) and I think the way they're building on that with something that actually sounds unique and cool as well as slightly louder is brilliant.

But by that same token you can't just dismiss a song as 'poor'. I personally think it is much better when compared to their other releases, so it's all a matter of opinion and it would be great if people could just give Violet Hill a chance without having a bitchfest about how they've changed - they've already warned you about that months ago, so you can't really complain. And nobody's asking you to kiss their arses, you could always just not listen to it and save the bitching for somewhere where the majority of people don't like the song.

interesting - i think war is definitely the dominant theme here. i love the way Chris mentioned that this album's a 'plagiarist's dream' - he got the 'banks like cathedrals' line from U2's forgettable 'The Playboy Mansion'.

yes this happened to me last night - I just re-entered the fields on coldplay.com and got another email and it didn't ask for a password second time round

I'm amazed - having listened to this song on repeat for hours I find this and everyone does appear to be shitting on it. You're all saying it's too 'mainstream' - honestly, compare this to Speed of Sound and you'll be eating your words. If I'm disappointed about anything with it it's that they didn't get rid of the falsetto and the piano totally, so I don't know what all you hardcore conservative Coldplay fans are complaining about. And converting the Nickelback fans is wishful thinking - maybe it's a bit heavier than their previous records, but it's not so different it'll convert those assholes.

mmm ... dunno about the cover, it looks like a bad photoshop job to be honest. There's no difference between the original painting and this apart from the paint flecks. In fact ...

off the top of my head, I can think Moby who put a snippeted mash-up of his whole upcoming album on his website a month or two ago. I'm sure there are others. But that's no guarantee that Coldplay will ...