Corkus

Coldplay's been dead for a whole year now? Wow, time really flies. So tragic. Sorta kidding. But I remember it well. I was taking the shuttle back home from seeing The National. I was on Twitter on my iPhone reading tweets from people who had just heard the song for the first time. Much of it was vile hatred. So I listened when I got home. And I suddenly desperately wished I was back at The National concert instead. :dozey: I didn't hate it as much as I hated ETIAW, and I still hate ETIAW more. But it hasn't grown on me one bit in the last year. :(

Damn this is an old thread. Many great musicians weren't even in bands yet when this was created. I'm gonna pull one out of left field and say Jarvis Cocker. He's everything you want in a great musician. Talented, good songwriter, entertaining personality, great stage presence, and not afraid to speak his mind even if it means hurting a few feelings here and there.

I haven't been a Killers fan for years but I listened to the stream anyway. Yeah...just not my band anymore. I liked "The Rising Tide" but everything else was just putting me to sleep.

I was afraid I was overhyping this album like I did with the xx album (which is very good, just not quite brilliant). But goddamn, Shields is every bit as great as I hoped. But yes, for beginners, Veckatimest is a great place to start.

Let's be fair, guys - Muse has never really had the greatest music videos. Their last really good one was probably "Invincible" (and I hate the actual song, for crying out loud).

I'm not gonna read this whole thread but did someone seriously say Coldplay invented crowd shots? :laugh3: Seriously, crowd photos being posted by bands online has been around since at least the beginning of Myspace and probably way earlier. And yeah, Muse live beats the crap out of Coldplay live. Lots of bands are better live than Coldplay. Coldplay is good live, but not mindblowing. (And no, I haven't seen them this tour, which I've heard is more about flashy screens than anything else.)

It's missing a kickass instrumental piece like "Intro". That's all I can think of, though. I've finally concluded that it's a damn good album that's just a notch below the debut.

4468 Had 4800 recently but threw away some mediocre-quality bootlegs.

The humor in SNL isn't a total wreck but the good sketches are sporadic. There are episodes that don't contain one funny sketch. Agreed with your assessment of the actors, though. It seems many of them start to bloom on SNL and then move on to do way better non-SNL things. So the exposure method works successfully. Which is exactly why I wish the quality were more consistent. This has absolutely nothing to do with Muse, but I guess that's nothing new for this thread. :P Yeah, usually our tastes are pretty similar...

I think everyone knows my distaste for SNL in general by now. :dozey: The fact that it's rarely been funny in the last decade, the fact that every musical performance sounds awful no matter who's giving it thanks to crappy acoustics and not being able to use your own sound guys, the fact that SNL is considered the national benchmark for both celebrity and band exposure, etc. On the contrary for me, Madness is proof for all the skeptics on this forum who doubt I can tolerate a band's shift in sound. Then again, I hate Survival and Unsustainable. :laugh3:

Okay guys, this is now a Radiohead thread. If you mention Coldplay, Muse, or Keane from here on out, you will be thrown into the tickle torture machine. OK Computer is totally better than Kid A.

Considering how critically acclaimed the 5 consecutive albums before TKoL were, it's not really panic time in Radiohead world. But Coldplay's been increasingly divisive for several albums now. Both bands have massive enough fandoms that they will never be in danger of losing popularity for the rest of their careers, but you get what I mean. I'm not really one anymore. Not just because of MX, since I felt they were on a sharp decline with Viva. But MX was my tipping point.

"Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It" is the best indie pop song all year. Only listened to the full album twice so far, but that three-punch of "A Song Is a Weapon/Progress/The 400" is stellar. "The Loose Ends Will Make Knots" is the unfortunate stinker that pops up once every Stars album.

I'd say Coldplay's "controversial" albums (which I guess means divisive among fans in this case) go all the way back to X&Y. I was lukewarm on TKoL but I'm not anywhere close to abandoning Radiohead's ship after it. If they write an MX, then I'll jump ship. ;)

Well to be fair, that's not hard. Car alarms going off in the middle of the night sound better than Mylo Xyloto. I'd actually argue that Keane went back to basics on Strangeland, even if it was nowhere as good as their first two albums. Perfect Symmetry was the divisive new (terrible) direction, and Strangeland went back to the more basic sound.

"Pyramid" is the easy standout track for me. A lot of the rest is unmemorable, mainly because most songs lack the hooks of the debut. I've always felt TDCC was a band who's more about fun music than about deep music, so those hooks are important. And there's just nothing as addictive as tracks like "Come Back Home" or "What You Know" were. (again, "Pyramid" being an exception)

Personally, I think ALL those bands suck. (or, in Coldplay's case, have just gone down a really sour path) Granted, most of this is for sound reasons. We're talking lyrical content? Okay, here's my take on lyrical content. There have been "dirty" lyrics since the dawn of rock and roll. Maybe most of them didn't drop f-bombs every line, but the subject matter has always been the same. Punk bands in the 70's and 80's, the grunge movement in the 90's, and even some contemporary artists who sound "innocent" have some very edgy content, talking about drugs, sex, and suicide in almost every song. The content in music isn't new or different. The PRESENTATION is. You had the Sex Pistols and all their issues both musically and personally. You had Nirvana's depressing content, ultimately ending in Kurt's own suicide. You had Rage Against the Machine singing about killing cops and politicians and they even got arrested themselves. Heck, even the Red Hot Chili Peppers - who are still currently relevant - sang about doing cocaine in their earlier hits. If we're talking SOUND, I could get into a whole different debate on that. Basically my bottom line on that is that while Skrillex and Nikki Minaj are creating a musically poor movement, Maroon 5, Linkin Park, and even Coldplay are just as guilty. Yeah, like I said, that would be a whole another 10 paragraphs from me. :laugh3:

I will go on the record of saying that I love Noel Gallagher as an individual as much as I enjoy him as a musician. As opposed to his brother, who purposely goes out of his way to pick fights (which is NOT what I'm getting at), Noel just speaks what's on his mind at the moment. Because the difference between his outspokenness and Liam's is that Liam is NOTHING BUT hate. That gimmick doesn't work. Noel is more nonchalant and will criticize an artist if the topic pops up and won't lie about it, but he gives credit where credit is due, especially to bands like Kasabian who have taken the post-Oasis charge in a quality fashion.

"Bad boy rock personality" hasn't been a cliche since the turn of the century. Things are boring. Now many rock stars don't have motivation to prove their critics wrong and outdo the competition. Everyone's now so wrapped up in political correctness and unquestioning approval that barely anyone improves their art or speaks their mind. Chris Martin - after that scathing X&Y review years ago - has even deluded himself into thinking all criticism is meaningless. Yeah, feelings get hurt and fandoms war against each other. And you know what? That's great. If you're in a band that's big enough to have a loyal warring fandom in the first place, it's not like you have to worry about your popularity dwindling because of someone else's remarks. Go ahead and hit back. That's why as much as we may hate the shit out of Nickelback, they aren't going anywhere. Spread the hate, my lovelies. <3

Chris is the ultimate "yes man" of the music industry. He will compliment everyone (Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, the Jonas Bros, probably Nickelback) just to be seen as the nice good guy. I kinda wish more musicians would just grow some balls like The Black Keys and be honest about their opinions, insulting whoever the hell they want. Damon Albarn and the Gallaghers weren't afraid to do it back in the 90's. And it was awesome. Can we have those days back please?

If Chris Martin said he liked my dog, I'd probably get rid of my dog.

Not sure yet if I like it as much as the debut or not. But one thing for sure is that I really like it. Nothing else on it tops "Angels", but I might even like "Angels" better than any song on the debut. (on the flip side, "Try" is probably the first xx song I actually dislike) "Reunion" and "Swept Away" are also great.

"So Cruel" was the first song that jumped into my mind.

Thank Christ. But then again, Undisclosed Desires is sickeningly popular. I can only hope the burden of carrying that damn keytar around on tour is reason for them to not play it next tour. Piss break, booze break, photography break, that's what UD was good for last tour.

Agreed. And I think Unsustainable is mediocre now, but Survival's the truly dreadful one. A lot of people are finding this a U2 ripoff, though I love U2. For some reason, U2 is detested among much of the fandom (partly because stupid fans are insulted that Muse opened for them. Yeah, how DARE Muse open for the biggest band in the world internationally, especially since Muse can't play stadiums outside Europe?). I'm sick of them ripping off Queen, even if this song's also basically "I Want to Break Free". So yeah, mediocre lead single, but the bar's been set so low by the past few releases that it rises above those.