Mark

It's not sidetracking the issue at all; what you count to be true art someone else might count as being pretentious drivel. I've got friends who hate Radiohead; just because I think they're the greatest band ever, doesn't make them that to everyone else. I'm not going to bother getting into "X is more technically gifted than Y", because that's not how good music is made. Paul McCartney for example, is not a good musician. Can't hold a note, often plays out of time, out of key or whatever. Happens to have written what I believe to be some of the best songs of all time.

To follow on from Celine, maybe Coldplay don't want to produce the next OK Computer. Radiohead are considered geniuses, best band in the world etc, but Chris has always said that he loves pop music; he once claimed that a Katy Perry song was as good as Karma Police for different reasons. He's not right or wrong, that's opinion. He wants his expression to reach as many people as possible, and not to be heckled at bus stops like Thom Yorke. There's nothing wrong with that, and if every band tried to be Radiohead, life would be pretty dull (not to mention cynical). And one final point before I stop rambling, how many "this is our ____" records have been true masterpieces? How many masterpieces are good because they're unique? Think on that one.

Can we stop judging bands by "X couldn't do an album by Y"? C'est nonsensical. The Beatles didn't release a Kid A, Bowie didn't release an OK Computer, Radiohead didn't realease a Ziggy Stardust; all three are still quality despite this.

Well, they're supposed to be pop-punk, and they're more pop than punk, as established, so where does that leave us?

I think it's a coincidence, but you never know. They gave Lukas to Natalie Imbruglia...

It wouldn't surprise me if they gave it to Green Day, but if they did, the fact no one knows about it is exactly my point: Green Day are ashamed to be pop.

I want this framed on my wall.

Mylo Xy-fuck you or Death and all his Blood to the Head?

Blink-182 and Foo Fighters are also too old to release pop-punk records; my point is that you reach a certain age, and then releasing (what I believe to be) dumbed-down, diluted rubbish really is indefensible. The reason I don't like pop-punk is that it seems like an oxymoron to me; you're either pop or you're punk. When punk got into full swing in the 70s, it was a movement designed to combat pop. It was supposed to be angrier, angstier, noisier and less-listenable to traditionally sweet and innocent pop music. What pop-punk does though is take this movement and utterly disregard what makes it special, by dressing up pop songs with little more than distortion pedals and irritatingly put-on American accents. It's a bit like broadcasting a show called "Fuck you, corrupt media organisations!" on Fox. So this is why Green Day are to me, more fake than Bieber or One Direction, because they pretend to be "rock and roll" and rebellious, when really, they care more about chart positions than any teeny pop band, because they can't sell as many posters. They're in a different league to Coldplay, because whilst Coldplay are shamelessly commercial, they've never tried to disguise it. I don't think the two should ever be compared musically, but ethically I'd also set them apart.

It's really bloody annoying how neurotic they are sometimes. Off the top off my head, Space Oddity, A Day in the Life, All My Friends, Paranoid Android, Won't Get Fooled Against, Knights of Cydonia, Saeglopur, Champagne Supernova, One Day Like This and Insomnia are ten songs over five or six minutes long that are considered masterful; it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion in the ocean, so to speak. They need to realise that X&Y wasn't shite because it was long and they had no rules, it was shite because it was vague, samey, poorly written and everything was dragged out. If they work with a couple of new producers, like Godrich, Orbit or Flood and they'll open Coldplay's eyes to just jamming and going with their gut. If anything, Eno's only made them more paranoid (not that he should necessarily be dropped).

Fuck me, is this actually a thread? :inquisitive:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7VQrnMzjrU]Gallifrey One 2013 - Steven Moffat interview - YouTube[/ame] This is an interesting interview...

Maybe because Green Day are too old to still be doing pop-punk? Also, why does Green Day always get a mention as one of Coldplay's contemporaries?

Aren't Biffy Clyro a band that can get away with releasing 20-odd songs without the mass media throwing a hissy and telling them to fuck off because they're boring though? :P

He must've done something. Started thinning at the start of the 2000s, and now he looks as good as he ever has.

Double albums are disasters waiting to be recorded. Part of an album's art is choosing the best 10-13 songs and placing your faith in the tracklist; you have to choose what is right sometimes, and not what is best. Viva is an excellent example of this, Kid A and In Rainbows also. X&Y is the opposite. There is such a thing as "too much".

That is quality, you're right. I've seen Elbow live though, and the main thing I took away from the performance was how assured and natural Guy Garvey looked onstage. He managed to get an entire field full of people to sing along to every song and hang on his every word, rather like Chris Martin does live. Don't get me wrong, Chris is not the greatest singer in the world, but not so bad as to take away from the quality of Coldplay's live performances. I've genuinely seen music journalists, hardcore hipsters and people apathetic to arena-rock come away from Coldplay gigs praising them as a unit, and him as a performer, which is pretty difficult to do when you're possibly the most ridiculed band on the planet, with a lead singer labelled a buffoon by just about everyone. You're right, but I only hold such a strong opinion of "performance > voice" because it's important people remember the importance of showmanship; no one has a talent show searching "the performer". Plenty of people can hit notes, but there will only ever be one Freddie or Bowie or Bellamy.

He's as good vocally as anyone else I've ever seen live, Matt Bellamy included. If you want to hear a fantastic voice, listen to the CD; 'live' is for concert experience.

It helps that Damon's had a hair transplant :P

It would be great if they did release it. And to Rihanna it would be the musical equivilent of this:

It's bollocks because no one really sounds like Radiohead, but there have been comparisons, I'm not making them up. Geeky indie has been mentioned by the press, and the aforementioned bands have been lumped in. Alt-J, Django Django and Everything Everything are vaguely similar in that they share the same influences, and they try to do something similar with their sounds.

Which is why I said script-writing is probably a better form to write in, for now.

They're one of these bands lazily labelled as a "new Radiohead" or whatever, along with Django Django, Everything Everything and Foals before them, but I think Alt-J are easily the best of the current batch of "geek-indie" bands. I used to be in a band with a guy who would only listen to music in weird time signatures, and could only appreciate stuff if it was clever. He used to spend ages writing such intelligent music, but it was rubbish because it had no soul to it. I feel like a lot of indie bands at the moment are trying to be really clever, like him, to compensate for the crassness of the last decade, ie. Pigeon Detectives, The Kooks, the landfill indie that borrowed Oasis and the Strokes. Basically, there's music for the heart and music for the head, and I think Alt-J fall nicely in the middle. No, they're not unique, but for my money, they do what they do better than anyone else out there right now.

Although I think the slower songs on MX are the weaker ones, I don't think Coldplay should stop performing acoustically live on the X stage. It's a great opportunity to play two or three oldies; they've done Don't Panic, Warning Sign and Green Eyes when I've seen them, and in future, songs like Cemeteries of London, A Message, Amsterdam and Shiver are all possibly doable acoustically in the middle; it would give them an opportunity to do something different, and it would please the fans. And also, it would free up a couple of spaces on the setlist to put new stadium anthems in.