Coldplay

No, I mean I hope they make one song that stands out. The Bones Of You and Leaders Of The Free World are my favs.

Ok. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'm german
Still I think, that it might be better for Elbow if they don't get bigger than now. They might lose some of their beautiful mood at their concerts. I've never been to a Coldplayconcert because it was too big to get first row and too "small" to get a good seat
I just hope for the Elboys, that they will earn enough money to live well but don't get so famous that they can not go to pubs anymore without getting annoyed by false friends...

Yeah, I'm proud of having a lesser known band I can convert people to. Have never been to an Elboe concert, but I have been to a Coldplay concert (which kind of counts as an Elbow concert cause guess who opened?) and it was the best effing day of my life

A Rush Of Blood to the Head is a very good album. I listened to it a lot, i have it.
I also like Parachutes, not so much, but i like it. I judge X&Y a bad album, basically boring adn too derivative from the past two. Viva la Vida is better, but i don't like the sound.

I don't love the Martin voice(sometimes on stage he has some problem) and think some of his lyrics are stupid and quite childlike. Topping the charts doesn't mean nothing to me. Also Ricky Martin did it.

A good pop-rock band, not more. IMHO.

Any thoughts on Christmas Lights? The general opinion on Coldplaying is that it's a good Christmas song, but not what's hoped to be on the album. I'll have to agree with that, altough there is something lovely about when the guitar, drums, and bass start playing.

The Final Track wrote:

Any thoughts on Christmas Lights? The general opinion on Coldplaying is that it's a good Christmas song, but not what's hoped to be on the album. I'll have to agree with that, altough there is something lovely about when the guitar, drums, and bass start playing.

I agree that it is a nice Christmas song, and I did add it my Christmas playlist.

Yep, like the Christmas song.
I have been a loyal Coldplay fan for many years and some of their stuff I may not be too keen on but this is a nice song...

I used to be a big - not huge, but big - Coldplay fan.

Then I discovered Elbow.

Coldplay are still a good band but there are aspects of them that grate. I think Chris's voice has become rather annoying and while he can sing, it can sound too nasally and whiney. As for lyrics, it's all a bit hit and miss. None of it seems as personal and unique as Guy's, despite several of their songs being allegedly dedicated to Gwyneth and others. By this, I mean that the lyrics could have been written by any songwriter almost, to their spouse/loved one. Garvey's lyrics are clever... but more than anything, they're HIS. His way with words is inimitable. Martin's lyrics aren't dreadful though - perhaps with the exception of Christmas Lights (dear God! LOL!)... No, the accolade for nonsense lyrics must go to Keane. Beyond terrible.

I think X & Y is better than people give it credit for. It is more polished and doesn't have the rawness of the first two - excellent - albums, but there are still some good tunes on it. I rather like Fix You in spite of the schmaltz, and The Hardest Part is excellent IMO.

My favourite is Rush of Blood, and the title song, actually. I like the sparseness of it, the maturity of it, and it feels very complete. Possibly my favourite ever Coldplay song. Clocks is very ambient but the start of what would become a repetitive style with Coldplay, a tad insipid and droning I feel and as such, overrated.

The Scientist has to be a beautiful song for anybody's ears. Lyrically, Martin is at his strongest here too.

Viva La Vida is the weakest for me so far. The title song is a good one, very catchy, very well composed actually, and with pretty good lyrics, but the rest of the album seems quite dull to me. However, Prospekt's March, the EP, is much stronger. It's all a lot more upbeat fare this time around, but almost every track here is a good track, especially turning Life in Technicolour into a full song. Rainy Day is just cool - never thought I'd use that word to describe Coldplay!) and Glass of Water is particularly strong. The only real weak point is Lost+ with Jay-Z. I don't do rap, neither should indie rock, and, well, any song with "+" in its title has got to be a wrongun. It is lyrically dire on Martin's part, too.

Christmas Lights is a lovely song musically, but Chris needs to go to creative writing classes methinks. My 12 year old niece could write better lyrics than this.

"Took my feet to Oxford Street"

Whoopie! An internal rhyme! Spending just a little too much time with Jay-Z and his rhyming dictionary though, Chris.

They need a raw, back- to-basics album in the vein of their first two now.

elbowismymuse wrote:

No, the accolade for nonsense lyrics must go to Keane. Beyond terrible.

Obviously, you haven't listened to Klaxons...

I would also say I am a big, not huge, Coldplay fan.

I love Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to absolute bits, even though they're absolutely different albums. (And The Blue Room, too, for that matter.) Parachutes is depressing angst guitar rock, Rush is a bit more peppy (Chris had found Gwyneth by that point) and anthemic.

X&Y I adore, but some of it also sits uneasily with me. The album drags in its last half, yet the album also boasts "Fix You" (which I find emotionally cathartic) and "What If" which belong in the top pantheon of Coldplay songs.

Viva La Vida is a puzzle. Slate described it as Coldplay's "We don't give a fuck album," but I think they missed the point. You actually have to work at Viva La Vida. Many of the album's song sound like they were song fragments strung together into a larger tapestry (think of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" or the Abbey Road medley), and the leaked Viva La Vida demos album seems to confirm that impression.

As an album, Prospekt's March is stronger (and easier to listen to) than Viva La Vida. I've experimented with playlists putting Viva and Prospekt's together (since Prospekt's is songs for Vida that weren't finished), but usually I'll play them as a double album -- the first album is more experimental, the second album is more accessible.

I doubt that "Christmas Lights" says much about the band's direction; the song has been around for a number of years (I think it was first mentioned in an interview back in 2003). I thought that, tonally, the song was basically "The Scientist" by way of "Violet Hill"; it really wouldn't have been out of place on A Rush of Blood. I've listened to the song far more than I'd care to admit; I like how un-festive it is.

(And no discussion of "Christmas Lights" would be complete without a mention of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theater's "Coldplay Christmas.")

I don't know what I want from the band's next album. I want more of the depressing music from the first album, but Chris Martin just isn't that depressed guy any more.

MagicalTrevor wrote:

elbowismymuse wrote:

No, the accolade for nonsense lyrics must go to Keane. Beyond terrible.

Obviously, you haven't listened to Klaxons...

haha, or the ting tings....

Well, have heard all the commotion regarding 'Every Teardrop...', and have now finally got round to listening to it.

Though my feelings probably aren't quite as vociferous as some of their hardcore fans, it's rather monotonous and dull, musically and lyrically, very one dimensional and just doesn't come across as believable.

I must confess, loved their first 3 albums - post X&Y though, I'd lost interest - however their gig at Bolton Reebok in '05 with Elbow supporting was BRILLIANT. Always makes me smile that gig, I met my mates a lot later due to wanting to see the boys, and It seemed there was only myself in the crowd going mad to them, juggling my 2 pints in the Lancashire drizzle.....

It's amazing how many conversations on YT you seem comparing Coldplay to Elbow - lyrically, and the quite humble Chris Martin would admit to this, they are miles behind Guy's.

I'm not feeling "Every Teardrop." I've listened to it a half dozen times now, and it does nothing for me. I can't remember a damned thing about the song. I can't remember the lyric. I can't even remember a single riff.

Anyone else think it sounds far too similar too U2?

No, I think it sounds very Coldplay, but it sounds like an X&Y outtake, much like "Christmas Lights" sounded like a "A Rush of Blood to the Head" outtake. (Which "Christmas Lights" kinda was -- it was a song they'd been working on since, umm, 2002 or 2003.)

I've forced myself to listen to "Every Teardrop" over the past twenty-four hours, and I'm starting to get the song, but I still don't think much of it. It's happy Coldplay, and I prefer morose Coldplay. (Even though the band doesn't rate it highly, I love Parachutes, which is morose from one end to the other.)

allyngibson wrote:

No, I think it sounds very Coldplay, but it sounds like an X&Y outtake, much like "Christmas Lights" sounded like a "A Rush of Blood to the Head" outtake. (Which "Christmas Lights" kinda was -- it was a song they'd been working on since, umm, 2002 or 2003.)

I've forced myself to listen to "Every Teardrop" over the past twenty-four hours, and I'm starting to get the song, but I still don't think much of it. It's happy Coldplay, and I prefer morose Coldplay. (Even though the band doesn't rate it highly, I love Parachutes, which is morose from one end to the other.)

Agree entirely. Boring X&Y-esque drizzle.
Massive fan of Parachutes, awesome from start to finish.
Chris hasn't produced any tacks like; Don't Panic, Yellow, Trouble or The Scientist on either of the last two albums.

I actually think X and Y was better than people gave it credit for - in all honesty, I like all four Coldplay albums to date, for different reasons, though I have always felt their lyrics were lacking. Some songs have passable, nay, occasionally good lyrics, but there has never been a flash of genius, and they are frequently quite poor.

I like Coldplay musically. X and Y was very different to the first two albums, Coldplay lost the sparseness and edge that may have once incurred comparisons to Elbow, and their sound became more self-consciously epic. This worked on certain tracks, and didn't on others, but I didn't think it was bad music.....just perhaps not quite as imaginative. Martin and co's ability to write a decent melody was not lost though and I really am fond of several tracks on X and Y so I can't agree with the general feeling (not on here, but just generally) that it was a poorer effort. Less understated. A little overpolished, perhaps.

Then came along Viva La Vida and the EP Prospekt's March, and I have to say that in recent weeks, this music has truly grown on me. Life in Technicolour is an awesome composition, and I have an especiall love for Strawberry Swing and for Rainy Day from Prospekt's March. The lyrics on Viva La Vida, while a little pretentious, are much better than usual, and that song, again, is terrific. It doesn't have the restraint of Elbow, nor the subtlety of their earlier output, but where X and Y lacked imagination somewhat, and seemed a bit middle-of-the-road, Viva was as far from "ordinary" as it could possibly have been. It was a new, bolder, more inventive sound for them, and they were writing happy music all of a sudden. I can't stand happy music generally, and I loved it, so it must have been doing something right.

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall..... no, sorry, it has disappointed. I like the guitar bit - predictable and expected almost, but it sounds good - but the rest of it is a bit of a mess quite frankly. Martin's lyrics are quite pitiful, the rhythm of his vocals annoying, and the guitar riff is the only sign that the song even has a tune. It's really quite poor, and sounds like a lot of the chart stuff I hear but refuse to research because I don't like how it sounds. My musical taste is probably 20 years ahead of my age, to be fair (as in, I tend to enjoy music a lot of 47 year-old men would enjoy....my 36-year-old brother has much younger taste) but even so.....I know a good song when I hear it, and this isn't one.

I like the fact that the band are keen to explore different sounds and not churn out similar-sounding stuff to play it safe, but I think what has happened with this particular track is the opposite perhaps to what they were intending. It doesn't sound different to the current pop output. It doesn't sound entirely different to their recent output because it has all the bombast of Viva La Vida/Prospekt's March.....only this time, without the intelligence and charisma ....it is more insipid than anything on X and Y (I use the word "insipid" here simply because it is one often applied to X and Y and I feel it's done so rather harshly), seems (unconsxiously or not) to be trying to be a mish-mash of stadium rock/club dance/mainstream-radio-1-friendly fodder, in an attempt to feign reinvention and yet still cash in on a hungry audience of undemanding listeners. Coldplay are yet to win quite the respect I have for Elbow (or Muse or Queen for that matter) but they had much more respect from me already than they deserve for this latest release.

I hope this isn't the general "sound" of their forthcoming album. How disappointing it would be.

The band announced on Twitter today that they're releasing another song, "Major Minus," in two weeks.

Please be better/more inventive/more interesting than "Every Teardrop." Please!

You can hear it on youtube already now. It's been played live including at Rock Am Ring which was streamed. It's much better than ETIAW!

allyngibson wrote:

The band announced on Twitter today that they're releasing another song, "Major Minus," in two weeks.

Please be better/more inventive/more interesting than "Every Teardrop." Please!

It is!

Here's a live version of it on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ojmqJFfR0

I'm really impressed with this one, "Charlie Brown."

So, when's the new album due out?

I'd guess October is the safest bet.

allyngibson wrote:

I'm really impressed with this one, "Charlie Brown."

So, when's the new album due out?

That is a good one.

I'm quite liking this too., much better than Every Teardrop. First listen and it's quite catchy.

OK. Here's my opinion on the new songs.

♦ ETIAW-The only thing that keeps me wanting to listen to this is the catchy guitar bit. The lyrics are either poorly written, don't make sense, or a sad combination of the two. It's grown on me since my first listen, but I still think they can do better than that.

♦ Major Minus-Better than ETIAW. The vocal distortion took some getting used to. While I don't love it, I don't hate it so much like I did the first couple of times. The bit from 1:57-2:06 is godawful, and I wish Chris would've just not tried to sing there.

♦ Moving to Mars-My favorite of the three. I didn't like the beginning at first, but I like it better now. When it gets to the section after the first one ("And I heard it on the radio"), I'm reminded of "42," which I like, so that's cool. When the drums come in full swing around the 2-minute mark, it makes me smile. This song is what I'd love Coldplay to sound like.