Coldplay X&Y

[Cabana Boy]

Thx. I does me best.

[b.dfzo]

...but I still think X&Y is a unashamedly good album.

[Cabana Boy]

On yer bike!

[Fire Wind]

Yeah, but I didn't buy the CD because I am part of a legion.

Didn't say you did.  It was just a possible reason for the contempt some may have for the band.  Those legion buyers described above exist, but probably not on any of these boards.

In a similar way, I wouldn't want to be lumped in with people who knock them just because they are popular, or not 'indie' enough or something.

[Jonas]

It's funny you say this, I'm listening to the Cocaine Sessions and the song 'Oh Lord' is hauntingly familiar...

Don't even. Just don't.

But I did! Have you listened to the two songs I'm comparing? I never compared the two artists (BW & Coldplay) I only made a simple comparison between the two tracks. I don't think Coldplay is anywhere in the level of Brian Wilson and I haven't seen anyone else try to say differently...

I'm surprised you can say all the things you did, have you really listened to their first albums? All of it isn't excellent, but they have written some great songs. I can probably pick out a few from 'Parachutes' and 'A Rush of...' and make a pretty solid compilation.

I do agree with your statement in regards to X&Y though

[Cabana Boy]

Have you listened to the two songs I'm comparing?

Yeah. 'Fix You' was everywhere in this country for months solid. This is why I don't listen to radio.
Because, in the UK, Coldplay are mistakenly considered by most to be one of 2 things
(*Musical innovators and songwriters of immense note
**The "people's band" - jolly nice chaps who write top quality bellowalongs, while still being introspective enough for the blokey on the street to stare meaningfully into his ale over while earnestly remarking "propeh band, that Coldpleh...not lark that Girls Alarrrrd crap..."),
the only way to avoid extreme soul pollution is to keep the radio OFF, and the TV permanently tuned to SkySportsNews (with "mute" on, if the bastards turn up soundtracking the "6 Of The Best" slot or something like that).

I never compared the two artists (BW & Coldplay) I only made a simple comparison between the two tracks.

"Even the vaguest parallels being drawn between their spew and Brian Wilson's heavenspun sounds" are enough to make me gip. It's not that I'm saying you didn't hear something, some tenuous similarity...but that it's a shuck. A dupe. A massive f*ck-over. It's just notes and rhythm, not soul. Coldplay just happened to get hit in the face by some dirt kicked up by Brian's blazing trail, and that's all you heard. Brian yelling "HERE'S $HIT IN YOUR EYE!!!!!!!!!" at a bunch of over-privileged, gormless, Phil Collins worshipping nobheads, as he roared by.
The gulf is so great, so YAAAAAAAAAWNIIIIIIIIIIING, that I find it staggering to think any superficial resemblance that might momentarily occur to a person, however slight, wouldn't be cancelled out automatically - ERASED CLEAN FROM THEIR BRAIN - by the colossal beauty of one and the complete $hiteness of the other.

Everything about that group is vacuous and faux. Right down to the name.
Coldplay. If you can't come up with a better name than that, don't start a band. Go back to Toff-school instead, and give your guitar to some penniless kid with a heart. Seriously, f*ck off and kick people out of their homes for a living. Leave music alone. It doesn't want you, it LOATHES your sorry ass.

I'm surprised you can say all the things you did, have you really listened to their first albums?

Yes, I have. I wish it wasn't so, f*ck knows I feel dirty for it in all the worst ways possible...but, yes.

[I. Spaceman]

Preach it, Reverend Sebastian.
Let all the children who read know that they have received the gospel.

[b.dfzo]

What's wrong with Phil Collins?

[I. Spaceman]

What's wrong with Phil Collins?

You're joking, right?

[b.dfzo]

No.  For a long time I didn't care for his stuff, but now I am coming around to some of his songs with a fresh ear.  Very good stuff once you get past the 80's gloss.

[Jonas]

It seems to me you have more of a problem of whats 'cool' or whats 'underground.' The Beach Boys were played on the radio a lot, heck back in the early 60's they were probably at the same level of pop as Nsync and The BackStreet Boys were in the mid-90's. They were a bunch of goody-two shoes kids with tucked in pants singing songs about love, cars, and surfing. Not so soulful, I'd think. Now before you go off on a tagent and thing Im comparing these two pop-culture bands musically, relax. Because I'm not. I'm saying in the level of popularity they were probably the same, which seems to me you have a problem against Coldplay just because a lot of people buy their albums because its being pushed on the airwaves so much.

Personally, I dont care if the music is played a lot or if a lot of people like it. I dig what I dig. I don't find it necessary for someone to bring down someone elses taste in music because they like something different. I agree with you on a lot of crap that spews the airwaves, this is true. A lot of garbage that people consider great is selling only because radio personalities shove it down their throats and make it seem like its the good sh*t. If you think radio is bad in the UK, I dare you to listen to a day straight of radio here in Miami. You'll literally kill yourself.

As for Coldplay, I don't think they're anyway innovative. Infact, after the first album I thought they sucked and probably hated them just as much. But what can I say, after a few more listens I was able to pick out some good stuff, and I think they're pretty solid. I'll even throw in some more gas into the fire, I think Chris Martin's lyrics are ridiculously lame. But I can't get over some of the great riffs they write. NOT including Clocks, ugh... and how nobody can tell the similarities between Clocks and Speed of Sound just need to stop it. stop everything theyre doing and just, stop.

But tunes like Politik, are pretty badass, imo.

Oh, and I dig Collins too.

[b.dfzo]

Clocks and Speed Of Sound are similar, yes.  But I'd rather listen to those two songs than the two that were done by Nickelback (I forget the names of them, but they sync up exactly.)  And people can criticize Coldplay for stealing their material from U2, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, etc.  But those are some great bands to steal from!  If Coldplay is only remembered for bringing attention to their influences, that would be cool with me.  But I still like a good chunk of their tunes.

[Jonas]

But I'd rather listen to those two songs than the two that were done by Nickelback (I forget the names of them, but they sync up exactly.) 

I listened to that mp3 too, where they pitch one song with the other and they sound exactly the same. Its sad that bands are able to make so much money with garbage like that. Its bands like Nickelback that make this argument completely relevant. Regurgitating the same power chord progression and ridiculous music and taking away from other bands that actually put effort into their music.

Oh well.

[Cabana Boy]

It seems to me you have more of a problem of whats 'cool' or whats 'underground.' The Beach Boys were played on the radio a lot, heck back in the early 60's they were probably at the same level of pop as Nsync and The BackStreet Boys were in the mid-90's. They were a bunch of goody-two shoes kids with tucked in pa...blahblahblah

You are oblivious.
Go play one of those crappy Coldplay tunes that you and Q magazine love so much, then spin, say, Holly Valance's 'Down Boy' straight after...you might get it then. Probably not.

and probably hated them just as much

Care to place money on that?

Coldplay ARE Nickelback. But EVEN MORE SINISTER.

[Old Rake]

I don't get to say this very often, so I'm going to kind of say it slowly, and relish it. Perhaps I'll enjoy a nice glass of wine, after. But:

I totally, wholeheartedly agree with Sebastian.

God, that actually feels pretty good.

A more soulless bunch than Coldplay I've never seen. Every song has a cold, calculated feeling, a sallow surface-level prettiness that belies a lack of original ideas and an inability to pen anything remotely approaching actual feeling. Everything has, implicit within it, a dripping, oozing superiority complex that even U2 cannot hope to match, and everything has a generic, bland quality that makes the songs *palatable* to a wide range of people while actually *appealing* to none of them. Ever found a truly rabid Coldplay fan? They don't exist. You cannot be rabid about Coldplay. They're the fucking default position. They're like turning your radio to "mediocre" to put on in the background while you're chopping veggies for the evening meal. There's nothing in them that inspires "rabidity" or even "passion."

And the worst thing about them? They never even rise above "mediocre" to "REALLY AWFUL." To be "really awful" you have to at least do something which provokes strong emotion. Phil Collins is, to some people, REALLY AWFUL because he at least went out there and did his frickin' BAD THING and its so SOMETHING, so wretchedly unapologetically SOMETHING, that it pisses people off. Coldplay are so bloody consistently inoffensive that they can't even achieve a level of awfulness that puts them in the upper echelons of awful bands. They don't inspire love OR hate. They inspire indifference.

And since the opposite of love is NOT hate, but indifference, it is this which dooms them.

Play "Clocks," and then play something by Smokey Robinson. Jesus. They're not even in the SAME UNIVERSE OF MUSIC. They're not even in the SAME DIMENSION. "Clocks" is a black hole of soul, it actually removes the soul from the next song you listen to. Thank god Smokey's song has soul to friggin' spare or it would be destroyed.

[Cabana Boy]

Play "Clocks," and then play something by Smokey Robinson. Jesus. They're not even in the SAME UNIVERSE OF MUSIC.

xXxXx
<3

[Cabana Boy]

[b.dfzo]

I am not skilled at spewing vitriol regarding the quality of this album, so my point of view won't prevail easily.  That being said...I like X&Y.  Now really try hard to think of another band on whom to waste your mordacious streak.

WIll it go round in circles?

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

I like the Coldplay songs I've heard.

I like Phil Collins, too.

[Cabana Boy]

I am not skilled at spewing vitriol regarding the quality of this album, so my point of view won't prevail easily.  That being said...I like X&Y.  Now really try hard to think of another band on whom to waste your mordacious streak.

Coldplay deserve vitriol mostly for being the emblem band of the "never mind manufactured muck, here's the real stuff" mindset that currently rules my country.
Laugh at my Girls Aloud records all you want, but make sure you've got something better than Coldplay to offer as evidence of your self-proclaimed connoisseur status...or *you're* the joke. And I'll laugh hard.
Their "tunes", as Jon noted, are just forgettable and transient puffs of hot air. Poison, yeah, but nothing that a cumulonimbus-sized hit of 'No Good Advice' couldn't easily engulf and destroy.
The cultural rot is where the real terror lies. People are actually being TAKEN IN BY THIS STUFF. Stilted gimps disregarding great work before even a cursory listen, on the basis of nothing more than their own crummy prejudice, yet holding Cold$hite up as an example of how to get it gloriously right.
It sickens me.

You appear to be no component in this grudge. Just a person of some unadventurous and easily-satisfiable musical taste, apparently.
So, step aside and let me do mine!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Pop is bad...bad,bad,bad!!!"
Courtney Love mocks would-be music-fascists, circa 1998

[Cabana Boy]

I like Phil Collins, too.

Jon was also astute enough to note the laziness of my Collins remark. At least his output can lay claim to being something as solid as a dog-turd on the sidewalk of Pop...Coldplay's reminds me of that remark one of Dylan's band made about being so hungry he was "farting fresh air". That's Chris Martin's songbook to a tee - one pale, barely-ever-existing fart of a catalogue.
Let's just let it fade now. Shouldn't take long.

[Old Rake]

The line between bands you FUCKING HATE and bands you FUCKING LOVE is frequently thin. I used to hate, with a VENGEANCE, Steely Dan. I mean, I felt *violent* about them. The mere sound of their music made me want to smash things and hurt people. Now, though? I love them. I mean, I unapolagetically LOVE, will stick up for them with fisticuffs LOVE them. What happened? Eh -- like I said, the opposite of love isn't hate, its indifferent. They stirred violent feelings which eventually mutated into affection. I realized they were TRYING to stir violent feelings, and were doing so wonderfully.

I'm sure that's what happened with a lotta people and Phil Collins. I've found recently I dont' really hate Phil as much -- that is to say, I kind of love to hate him. I hear his music now and I almost feel warmth at the return of that old familiar feeling of vitriol.

A band like Coldplay doesn't provoke that kind of ire, and thus, will never provoke love, either. You might fall in LIKE with X&Y but never LOVE. It's not Pet Sounds. It's the Hollyridge Strings Play Pet Sounds.

The cultural rot is where the real terror lies. People are actually being TAKEN IN BY THIS STUFF. Stilted gimps disregarding great work before even a cursory listen, on the basis of nothing more than their own crummy prejudice, yet holding Cold$hite up as an example of how to get it gloriously right.

Yeah, that's kinda what I hate too. Like somehow they're REAL, MAN and AUTHENTIC and RIGHT. That's poop. They're as coldly calculating as the worst,  most calculating radio-pop ever. They're as coldly calculating as Jessica Simpson, the only difference being the songwriter is IN the group rather than writing from the outside. Which is supposed to make it okay. I'd rather listen to someone like Max Martin craft a subversively genius song like whatever that Kelly Clarkson song from last year was with the full knowledge that he's TOTALLY manipulating me, rather than have Coldplay try to SNEAK in the manipulation under the guise of "realness." If that makes any sense. I'd at least like honesty. Coldplay doesn't feel honest. They're a demographic experiment. They're an attempt to create a lowest common denominator that's somewhere in the MIDDLE rather than at the BOTTOM.

[Cabana Boy]

I've found recently I dont' really hate Phil as much -- that is to say, I kind of love to hate him. I hear his music now and I almost feel warmth at the return of that old familiar feeling of vitriol.

Ditto.
And seeing him lump along in his cargo-pants for a BoneThugsNHarmony video was a gas. More of that, Phil.

Yeah, that's kinda what I hate too. Like somehow they're REAL, MAN and AUTHENTIC and RIGHT. That's poop. They're as coldly calculating as the worst,  most calculating radio-pop ever. They're as coldly calculating as Jessica Simpson, the only difference being the songwriter is IN the group rather than writing from the outside. Which is supposed to make it okay. I'd rather listen to someone like Max Martin craft a subversively genius song like whatever that Kelly Clarkson song from last year was with the full knowledge that he's TOTALLY manipulating me, rather than have Coldplay try to SNEAK in the manipulation under the guise of "realness." If that makes any sense. I'd at least like honesty. Coldplay doesn't feel honest. They're a demographic experiment. They're an attempt to create a lowest common denominator that's somewhere in the MIDDLE rather than at the BOTTOM.

BullseyeX1000. That's it, right there. Every word.

[b.dfzo]

Are you implying that I consider myself a 'connoisseur'?  I don't often agree with the masses on popular music tastes, so my liking X&Y, to me even is a bit odd, I know.  I tend to dig good songs most adventurously: I've been known to give "Don't Worry Kyoko" a casual headbobbing listen.  I can see one element of your hate towards them; here in my neck of the woods of Small Town, USA, I am not inundated with Coldplay everywhere I turn.  I happened to see the CD at - gasp! - Wal*Mart, so I bought it and have had it in semi-regular rotation since.  I don't care if that gives the impression that I am 'easily satisfiable'; X&Y isn't good to me because people think it is adventurous or innovative or more authentic than thou, I am simply saying that X&Y is a good listen.  I love to listen to X&Y.  Here are some more things I am saying:

• I love guilty pleasures in music.
  
• It isn't that I love to hate; more often, I hate to love.  Then it eventually turns into love to love, but that's redundant.
  
• I love "Against All Odds".  And "One More Night".  I don't love Phil in cargo pants.
  
• I like faux-inspiring clichéd movies like "Radio", "October Sky" and "The Mighty".  Because...I am easily satisfiable.
  
• I am easily satisfiable.
  
• I am easily satisfiable.  I repeat things on purpose, to emphasize them in flashback.
  
• The only channel I ever watch is "The Hallmark Channel".
  
• I like to make long, boring lists filled with seemingly useless facts.
  
• The human head weighs eight pounds.
  
• Coldplay broke the record in the United States for most albums sold in one week by a British artist. The record was previously held by the Beatles.
  
• I said that to imply that I think The Beatles are currently past their critical darling prime, and should break up before succumbing to guest appearances on "American Idol" or "Dr. Phil".
  
• I am only overemphasizing how easily satisfiable I am.  Whoa, pre-flashback work was efficient!
  
• Lists can be annoying, but not necessarily corrosive for your teeth.  Unlike Banarama.
  
• You are now dribbling vitriolic acid down your shirt.
  

Now...pounce!  Attack!  Type so furiously that steam rises from under your fingernails!

[Cabana Boy]

*pounces, in an attacking fashion, steam rising from under fingernails*

Are you implying that I consider myself a 'connoisseur'?

You appear to be no component in this grudge.