Coldplay

Mylo Xyloto.

My experience with this is a lot like my experience with The Seldom Seen Kid. I didn't like TSSK the first time I listened to it. Or the second. I didn't get it. And then, on a later listen, "Tower Crane" hit me just so, and suddenly the album unlocked for me and I loved it.

I didn't like "Every Teardrop" when I first heard it. I liked "Major Minus," and I thought "Moving to Mars" was positively lovely. But with every listen, "Every Teardrop" grew on me.

Then I saw the video for "Paradise." And I didn't like it. The video, that is. And that soured me on the song.

Then MX arrived, and I listened to it, but without much enthusiasm.

And now I love it.

I think it's a return to the form of X&Y. That's not to dismiss Viva La Vida, but that was almost an art-house rock album. I know there's some sort of rock opera-esque story here, but I don't really care about that. I love the [i[sound[/i] of MX. "Paradise" makes me happy when I hear it, "Charlie Brown" (which has nothing at all to do with Charles Schulz, as far as I can tell) is amazing.

MX doesn't reach the heights of Parachutes or A Rush of Blood, but it's a damn fine piece of work.

I think it's their weakest effort yet. I tried really hard to like it, but I just can't.

For me, it is pleasant enough in the main, but I simply just don't connect with it and I feel it's just all a bit too easy, this'll sell well formulaic pop music....which is great if you like that sort of music, but I don't, personally. I prefer a bit more ideosyncracy and nuance in my music and that's where Parachutes. Rush of Blood and Viva excelled in....music that surprised you in some way, took you on a journey. X and Y was better than it got credit for but I found it comparatively boring compared to CP's other work and I am afraid I find this latest release the most predictable and boring record to date.

Jonny Buckland is an excellent guitarist, but a guitar riff does not a song make....no, sorry ....it can do. Many an excellent song uses a riff as its engine but it doesn't make an album...not an interesting one anyway. I struggle to find the songs underneath the plethora of slightly-altered-for-each-track guitar sequences...it lacks depth, substance, it's skeletal songwriting...not minimalist or stripped down- that could be argued of Build a Rocket Boys in comparison with The Seldom Seen Kid....the difference Is, MX is one big gimmick, from the symbols-for-each-song on the reverse of the CD, to the almost, compose-by-numbers approach to songwriting. Unimaginative, shamelessly commercial.

I like ambient, rock, folk, ballad, emo music and this is a self-professed move to pop...but the kind of pop that populates the charts today and I am not there. It's too shallow, too perfunctory, no-frills and utterly bereft of emotional resonance where I am concerned so it is as much my problem as it is a problem with the album itself.

The Scientist, Don't Panic, A Rush of Blood to the Head, Viva La Vida, Strawberry Swing, 42, Trouble....this is Coldplay at their best. Careful composition, a bit of quirk, humanity and originality in the sound....more of this please.

I like Coldplay and that is why their foray in into plastic music is so disappointing.

^ I felt like that, too. As I was listening to it, I generally felt very indifferent. This isn't to say there aren't a few highlights on the album ("Us Against the World" comes to mind), but for the most part, I just didn't understand what they were doing and why. It was really weird listening to "Princess of China" and coming to the conclusion that Rihanna was actually the best part of the song.