Mark

Here starts the campaign to bring Death and All His Friends back into the set.

Personally, I'd love a set that featured Politik just after the acoustic segment in the middle. I think it's a perfect opener, but it's also brilliant to throw in after something quiet, kick the second half of the set off with a bang. I think it was just giving it a bit of a rest. It was penultimate song in the Viva set, so maybe Fix You will shift up the set slightly on the next tour, and we'll have Yellow maybe as the penultimate? Fix You might be given less prominence. It's like dropping them, but with less consequence.

The five that they'll never replace are Yellow, Clocks, Fix You, Viva la Vida and Paradise. Which I think is fair enough really when you consider their ethos that it could be someone's first gig or their last gig: they'll want to see those ones, at least. It's not like with Muse, where there's a massive proportion of the fanbase that despise these big hits, either. Sure, they're not our favourites, but they're a lot of people's, a lot of more casual fans certainly. I think MX was an attempt to find that "new" hit. I wouldn't be surprised if LP6 feels more personal.

Wow, when I realised I wanted to be a journalist, what the fuck did I study English for? I should've applied these stylistic techniques instead. I should've listened to Kid A and sent off the succint review of "Kiwi fruit are the best representation of Thom Yorke's house" to Pitchfork. I should've swallowed a Noel Fielding joke book. So many regrets. EDIT: This sounds angrier than it's supposed to be. Here. Have a picture of my cat in a suitcase to soften the abrasiveness.

Careful, that's the kind of vagueness that'll see you end up on the Coldplaying Hipster Poster Wall of Fame.

Been a long while since I posted here, but for a nice bit of nostalgia on a Tuesday morning, what's your favourite thread ever on Coldplaying? Mine would be one of Anthony's writing threads. I did like the one that descended into rap battles between Thom Yorke and Noel Gallagher though.

I was born in 1992. My girlfriend's sister was born in 1997. I remember 1997. That makes me feel old.

They'd better do Equality Street with Brent. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmTV62mE1PA]Brent and Johnson - Equality Street [Official Music Video] - YouTube[/ame]

Back to the concept thing, I'd quite like it if some of the songs were linked, but not in an obvious way... sort of how Every Teardrop is referenced in Paradise. But there's a song on Arctic Monkeys' AM, Knee Socks, that goes "You were stood in the corner with the coats all piled high, and I thought you might be mine" and it's sung with the same melody as R U Mine?. And on Fireside, the hotel suite that Al mentions is a reference to 505. Alternately, Radiohead seem to focus a lot of their songs about depression on water. How to Disappear Completely is perhaps the most depression-based song, and it talks of floating helplessly down a river. Weird Fishes is more hopeful and talks of being "turned" at the bottom of the ocean, maybe someone's helping Thom reach the surface. And the all-the-more positive Codex talks more about a clear blue lake where the water's warm. So what am I getting at? Well, a lot of Chris's lyrics you can write off as being a placeholder for the melody, but he's written an awful lot of concrete lyrics, about puzzles and missing pieces, perfect days at Strawberry Swing and cathedrals a-plenty. If he could tie up some of these ends, make sense of some of them, it not only makes the songs a bit more accessible, it rewards the true fans who've been there from the start. For example, on Speed of Sound, he talked about birds in relation to birth, and it related to Apple being born. On Up With The Birds, he sang about birds singing "start again". It would make a nice opening track to talk about birds again, and would relate to whatever new direction the record could have.

We have Fix You at work. I work in a shop selling suits. And I was singing "And I will tryyyyy..." today, and an elder gentleman in a full suit, overcoat, scarf finished my line for me. Loved him, I did.

Let's throw another question open. Should Coldplay go more concept or less concept? Should there be an overarching theme like MX, or back to Viva days? Should they try soundtracking something, or should they go for ambitious branding like Arcade Fire have lately?

We're two halves of the same person. Jekyll and Hyde, Yin and Yang, Britney and Miley.

Enjoy bxtches

In fact what I might do is make some inspirational hipster posters of a few of those quotes ^ I'll post them when I'm home from work.

This thread can mostly be summed up in a few choice quotes, that reflect the nature of the discussions conducted over the past few moths. Enjoy the memories, ladies and gents xxx

Is that not the lounge?

Talk's video is lovely. <3

I don't think a band has to be playing the same instruments to keep their identity. Look at Radiohead. Oh it was supposed to be funny, was it? Do excuse me for assuming that people might find a comment about whimsical suicide offensive and insensitive. And despite urging me to read the rest of your post (which by the way, I think you mean another post, where you backtracked your "joke"), you haven't really read my response all that carefully. It's clear from my reply that I didn't find your "joke" particularly offensive, I just thought it was a pretty stupid thing to say that could upset other people. Some of us are more sensitive than others on here, so it's nice to be nice. Furthermore, "egotistical", would suggest that my comment was self-centred and absorbed in my own opinion; on the contrary, my "rant" was that we as fans don't know what's best for the band. I think you're the one that needs to "calm down", as you put it. You said something silly, I jumped on it, end of. It's nothing personal.

iwantoneofthose.com is the greatest site ever for presents just saying

It's not a marketing thing to write big anthems, they're the ones that work best in the arenas that Coldplay perform. It doesn't mean it's not good music, and it doesn't mean that they won't include songs like Up In Flames and Up With The Birds to balance the album. It needs to be accepted though, as Celine touched upon, that whatever they do is going to sound like Coldplay. They could record acid jazz and it would still be comparable to Fix You, somehow. Which is a fantastic thing, to have such a strong band identity. If that's not your thing though, there are bands out there, like Arcade Fire, who Aschall rightly points to as being on another level from most artists today. To say "I might have to consider committing suicide" over an electronica effort though is not only mildly offensive and insensitive, it's arrogant and narrow-minded. The band know better than any of us which direction to move in: they've been putting every drop of creativity into Coldplay for what, fifteen years? They have the right to do whatever they want, electronica or no electronica. Sorry.

As a massive Doctor Who fan, it's always a talking point of what a new Doctor will wear. I'm not saying I'd like to see Chris wearing a bow tie, but it would be nice to have more variation on the dress code this time round; not just the same blue and pink shirts every gig. I'd personally dress Chris in a really nice tailored white shirt, some kind of sports or miliatary jacket and then colourful trousers, either red or blue (kind of similar to when Matt Bellamy wears a white t-shirt with his red suit trousers.). Shows a maturity and a youthful side, and then accessories can grow from that, i.e. scarves, handkerchiefs, jacket changes, taking the jacket off and rolling up sleeves, alternating shirt colours etc.

They could've just made a nice meal together. In all seriousness though, there'll be quite a few people hitting the roof over this one. It was bad enough when Princess of China was revealed to feature Rihanna, but Tinie Tempah's one of the most intelligent British rappers we've produced for a while. He's ambitious and always looking to broaden his sound - not unlike Coldplay - and apparently, he gives his stuff to Damon Albarn to listen to for second opinions. Great news that they've worked together, I say, and bring on this material.

Just out of interest, which ones have been done just on piano? I used to be a big Muse fan, didn't like the latest album, so haven't followed them lately.

Yeah, that wasn't a rant, I'm on your side about the Viva thing... and as a Kanye West fan, it makes me a bit sad that the Twisted Fantasy era ended with only one UK date :/ But that's the beautiful thing about artists who move forward; when they visit the old stuff live, it's different because they've changed as individuals, they can put new spins on old songs. When I saw Coldplay the time before last, they did Don't Panic acoustically here... it was so lovely to see an old one revisited like this with everyone giving Jonny the credit for his harmonies <3 [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCXQGz0BA88]Don't Panic at The O2 - YouTube[/ame]

Again, this is something that we hear every three or so years, and I'm afraid it's not going to happen. They have to move forward as artists and look towards what's out there to do, not what's already been done; returning to your roots breeds a horrible staleness and a lack of ambition. On their last album however, Coldplay acknowledged their past with a few songs in the vein of Parachutes. That's more than you're likely to get from Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Muse or even Kanye West these days, so accept it and look forward to the band's future (not just you, anyone who's still waiting for Sparks pt. II).