gentleparachute

I was going to write something about "The Dressmaker" - it's a nice little Aussie movie with an all-star cast of international Australian actors (save one Kate Winslet)... It's a well-made smallish movie with lots of spirit and good story, the kind of indie darling that the Oscars like to take notice of some nominations time... Slightly cheesy storyline but they do a good job of taking the path less well trodden in the telling of the various relationships. I thoroughly enjoyed it - 9/10! Hopefully you don't find parts of the story-telling too whimsical...

Josh Groban - You Raise Me Up

One factor might be they are not overplayed? :P It's refreshing to feel a need and have to seek out songs like Careful Where You Stand to listen to rather than have these tunes shoved in one's face all the time. I know over here one of our major TV channel's morning show's music guy has a thing for Coldplay - I'm pretty sure he/she plays at least one of their hits every morning within that 3 hour period! Often I'll hear a few snippets from different songs lol :laugh3: With this sort of exposure songs are bound to become less special sometime, particularly when they are trotted out to match cheesy / tired stories on TV... In fact I think some of their hits suffer from over-exposure that way (eg Paradise, Yellow, Fix You) whereas others that have unusual sounds benefit and eventually become accepted as part of a contemporary musical landscape (eg Clocks, Violet Hill)

^ Hey, hey... They are a good trilogy of movies. Ethan Hawke seems to have a penchant for long-term projects - have you seen Boyhood (I rate that a 9/10 if not a full 10)? It's an elegiac movie - I think you might enjoy the poignant and lyrical moments in it...​

Read what you will into it, but now may not be the time to sing about the sins of religion... it may be true that many conflicts have been related to misinterpretation / carried out in the name of religion, but that is not what the world needs to hear at this moment - it will only make tensions / bad feelings worse. I think "a brotherhood of man" is a much better choice for this particular occasion... I think Chris may have been looking for a uniting sentiment, rather than a dividing one (as religion often can, particularly if a person is denouncing it).

Radiohead - Just

High and Dry vs There There

Optimistic vs High and Dry

^ I really love that song... It's one of my favs from Parachutes. There's a quiet calming list from that album - Don't Panic, Shiver (if you want to change it up), Sparks, Trouble, +/- Parachutes, +/- High Speed, We Never Change... So moody, so melancholic, so much ambience, and such a nice, warm, lovely hug from the band *sigh*

It's Midnight from me...

A warm, loving hug to all the French Coldplayers and French people out there... :hug: My thoughts are with you, and I'm sure many on the forum are thinking of you even if they remain silent. May you be filled with safe feelings and warm thoughts during this stressful time.

U2 - The Hands That Built America

THanks stephend2000 it works a treat! Fingers crossed it holds up against more traffic :)

I know I'm from Australia but I've attended 2 of their concerts... I think you can get the standing general admission tickets from around $150-225... Knowing the lads, they will aim to keep it affordable - I'd be really surprised if it's much more expensive than that

^ Yup, that's a classic... I love Guy's bass on that one. If I remember correctly, that is one of the first songs that actually has a prominent and groovy bass!

Maybe with having kids they are now more "considerate" / compassionate people... I find that as I get older, I get more and more reluctant to criticise anything and also have become more accepting of other viewpoints. After all, the people getting criticised / poked fun at in the end are still people too with families etc. The band probably feel "let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone..." As for whatever "edge" they had, I dunno what the appropriate response is to that... age wears away the "fire within" - if they held on to those annoying feelings, it would eventually turn them into tired, bitter people - may be good for songs, but pretty much useless for anything else... Besides, they would then become the "whiners" - I'm sure people would start complaining about how much they "complained" about things from up their presumptuous ivory towers ~Oops, sorry for dumping on the Oldplayers' thread... It's just far too easy to do. I will stop discussion now and leave you guys in peace if preferred... However I do love a good discussion :thumbsup:

Let me expand... I agree with you that in some ways their creative quality has gone downhill eg cleverness of lyrics, the lyrical / melodic quality (or ear if you like) of their songs... But some of that is still down to perspective - all their songs are still worked on by all the members, and crafted with some degree of care - it may not be as obsessively perfected as it used to be, but I don't think anyone can accuse them of not putting in the effort. As for the end result, I have said before that I don't consider "pop" necessarily worse than "rock" - there are good and bad examples of both. As for some reduction in quality, my response is try and cut them some slack - they are all between 35-40 with young families and treat this seriously as their day-job.. will it always be top-notch? Maybe not, but goodness me, they work, and they try! I also think it is harder to write good lyrics for those dancey, happy tunes - opaque lyrics just do not work, therefore Chris has had to change - as we've all noted, direct lyrics are probably not his forte - he tends to do cringe-worthy :laugh3: I've also previously noted elsewhere that their actual instrumental playing and music-making has improved progressively with each album... AROBTTH had a bigger sound, X&Y became more complex, VLVADAAHF explored new sounds and genres, MX had all the guys starting to put in more musical ideas / motifs into each song (check-out the number of Jonny riffs in HLH and Major Minus), while GS has them playing cleanly and looking into the production side of things... I hope AHFOD continues this aspect of their development even if the lyrics and melodic quality are not what they used to be.

I think with age, they have become more mainstream and centrist - they have always struck me as people who can appreciate at least two sides to everything... After awhile of having multiple perspectives and seeing the world go round (and round), sometimes more clear-cut opinions / stances get softened... For me, I find it heartening that CM is now looking at the global goals, which hopefully only gets minimally politicised, and which are pretty much goals that almost everyone can get behind

You're very welcome... It was originally created / intended for fans like you :) If you like it / think it is worth it, would you like to take over guardianship of this account? The original others whom I co-managed the account with seem to have left the forums / are no longer active... I myself don't know how long I will be able to stay active regularly before I dive underneath and disappear again, so I hope to leave this account with a few others so that it can live on and other fans can benefit :)

Like I said, "The World Turned Upside Down" is what they were both historically known up til 2007 when I left the forums... The names may have changed over time particularly if the 2nd song was not officially released...

Of course - check your PM, I just sent you the name, password and back-up e-mail in case it asks... Tell me what you think :D

*Edit - too slow* Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) :D

Actually while we're on this Oldplayers' thread, I have an OT story to tell, a confession to make, an apology to add, and an offer as well... Back in the day (up till about VLV era), when internet was slower and online storage space more precious, videos were harder to come by and share... the band also had not released their b-sides box set yet. So what happened was some of us came up with the idea to have an e-mail account with "open access" (shared password) so any fan on here who wanted an mp3 of any non-album song could have access at a place where links would not expire... There was a small group of about 4 of us, mainly led by myself, and using a thread, who maintained this gmail account and sent PM's to any password requests... We did this for ?a couple of years and then eventually life took over in late 2007 and I got on with my life and had a hiatus from here for a number of years... Unfortunately, quite a few fans here were left hanging long after I had "left" and when I came back a couple of years ago, there was a tonne of requests in my Inbox, half of them from fans who had come and gone already :P As such, I owe all these people an apology - and any of the mods here who had to clean up after / answer desperate requests from forum users... Sorry if anyone here was affected personally! I can only say that I was engaging in off-line life! Having become active again in recent weeks, I can't help but notice that sometimes even Oldplayers may not have heard an old song / have access to a recording... I tried accessing this e-mail account again and to my surprise, I managed to gain access with the original user name and password! This now leaves me with a (small) dilemma and (easy) opportunity to leave this small legacy to any Oldplayers out here who may be missing any songs in their collection - it is neatly organised, collected and labelled, and we did develop a system to prevent any issues. And the download links still work as they are attached to the e-mails :laugh3: So, the offer is... would anyone be interested - to either have access to the e-mail account, or even take over the account? :D It contains audio (mp3, real media) only, has pretty much the definitive version of all their non-album songs, and is pre-VLVADAAHF... Therefore naturally, it belongs in the Oldplayers' thread (hence why I have chosen to post here)! I know in this day and age, most likely any interested Oldplayer would probably easily have searched for and found all their old songs / catalogue, but I have noticed a few times over the past weeks that a few people are still missing an odd song here and there, so maybe someone may still have use for this. It is also so easy to use as the song names are the e-mail titles - so just search, click on a song, and download! And if no one needs it anymore, that's ok too ;) So, sorry for the rather long, and OT-post... but thank you for your kind attention. Cheers!

@42Escapist and @thetwinparadox... They are both called "The World Turned Upside Down" - at least that is what we used to call both the songs until 2007 when I had a long hiatus from the boards here... I also have these recordings if anyone is missing them :)

Are Oldplayers more conservative / less open to new things or directions? Not necessarily a bad thing, just personality / personal preference... I guess you guys may have a more rigid or definite idea of how things should be / music should sound like etc. For me, as long as Coldplay keep their spirit, I will go along for the ride... Although I panicked slightly today when it dawned on me there is a possibility they have completely left behind their classic sound... I sincerely hope they have expanded in both directions (if not all directions), rather than just in the "pop" side of things - for them as musicians I feel they should not be bounded / limited by what they are. In saying that, I hope they continue to have room for and continue to develop their classic "Oldplay" sound as well!