Morpheus

Let's have a little bit of clarity people and not waves of fanatical emotion. I am a fan of both Coldplay AND Satriani. I wake up every morning to Clocks and have ever since I bought the album right after it was released. I also play the guitar. I happen to have met Satriani in person on multiple occasions now. Yes, I'm "old" and over 30 although I won't give you my exact age. Suffice to say, I like both Coldplay and Satriani and I don't usually compare them because I think of Coldplay as a band and Satriani as an instrumentalist. I like both of them and their music. However, after reading some of these replies, I'm ashamed of the fact that there are Coldplay fans here who are so eager to disparage one of the greatest guitar legends of our time. I am not the type to post on message boards. I usually never register and hang back and read. But the ignorance some of you have shown is astounding and I felt obligated to say something. Part of why I never post is because I cannot state anything in a few words, so I apologize for the novel. The reason Coldplay is not commenting is because their legal counsel likely told them they should not. This is a no-brainer. You don't talk about legal happenings while they're going on. This does not mean they are guilty or anything. That being said, the melody is VERY similar and it's no wonder that Satriani's counsel advised him to sue. I've discussed this topic with some other musicians and they all agree that Satriani has a much bigger beef with the similarity than the Creaky Boards. I went to a Satriani concert last month (yes, imagine that...someone who goes to see both Coldplay AND Satriani...can you believe a person like me exists???). My wife bought me a special meet & greet package where you got to sit in on a very small 45 minute Q&A session before the concert. (I also got my guitar signed by him afterwards, yay). I found it interesting when a fellow fan asked Satriani if he thought there were any resemblances between the songs. Satriani, who is a very humble and friendly guy, simply said "My legal counsel has advised me not to discuss this". My wife is an attorney and she and I discussed this afterwards and knew it was only a matter of time. She is also a huge fan of both Coldplay and Satriani. She is also a very accomplished musician. After listening to the songs back to back (and also the meshed version with them overlapping), she had no doubt that Satriani would likely end up suing. As much as she loves Coldplay though, she does not fault Satriani for doing so and neither do I. What many of you don't know is that Satriani actually likes Coldplay and has no vendetta against them or jealousy over their success. Satriani is a guy who simply likes to play the guitar. He has no financial difficulties and has mentioned numerous times that he doesn't care about being in the limelight. He plays because he loves the guitar. The guy is truly a genuinely nice guy and he's no Yngwie Malmsteen (who has a horrible personality). So no, those theories about greed or jealousy are completely unfounded. Satriani does not hate Coldplay. This is simply about a very eerie similarity to melodies. The legal proceedings are standard procedure and I can't believe it hasn't happened before now. They'll play along in the background and both Coldplay and Satriani will be around afterwards and their fans will still love them. Believe it or not, Coldplay DOES know who Satriani is as they've mentioned him by name in an old interview. While I personally feel that Coldplay may have inadvertently copied the melody, I will still listen to their songs. The fact is, when you're creating a song, you sometimes play stuff that you heard before but don't consciously realize you heard. I would be appalled if Coldplay had NOT heard Satriani's album at some point prior to their creative songwriting process. They're musician's and they probably listen to more music than you. In the end, there isn't much to this. Move on. Coldplay is still a great band and Satriani is still one of the greatest guitarists. But if you feel blind rabid fandom overtaking you and you feel compelled to disparage Satriani, at least get your facts straight and don't look like an ignorant moron. Saying nobody knows who he is just shows some of us that you really don't have much knowledge about music in general. Or perhaps you've never picked up Rolling Stone or read any articles about the great musicians of our age. I probably won't have a chance to respond to this as I'm about to leave work for the weekend and I have a life to attend to. So I will simply leave by saying chill out and have a nice weekend. My old age may cause me to forget I posted this too. :\