ColdPlay Band

I am an anglophile. I love sitcoms from the BBC, even if the American versions most often expose how bad the show is minus the accent (some say that American producers just do not get what makes them funny, I disagree, obviously). I love girls with British accents 9much like my girlfriend melts when ever Colin Firth speaks). I love British music. I like their take on rock and roll. While the State’s popular musicians say they are influenced by the blues, few have that same desperate, hard edge (with the exception of the Black Keys and the White Stripes).

To me it just seems that even the most pop oriented groups like Coldplay have something that makes an otherwise overly emotional anthem bearable, and even enjoyable. I thought about the big British bands and what each of them means to me. In the end I found that Coldplay, Radiohead, and Oasis (I am a child of the ‘90s) fit together like a CW primetime soap.

Coldplay is the male lead. He is, or they are, the well meaning focus of the story line, pining after love or justice. At times his whining can be annoying, but deep down, it is his struggle that drives the show and, in this case, the music landscape. It is hard to argue that they do not hold that mantle in mainstream music. They are the clean cut group that play huge shows around the world and sell a ridiculous number of albums.

Radiohead is the secondary character everyone knows is cool. He can do what he wants with almost no consequence. The group put out huge albums with OK Computer and Kid A that went platinum, but albums since have struggled to get passed gold in the U.S. and in many countries around the world. Still the albums reached number one on the charts. It is this lack of commercial follow through, often due to their individuality and shunning of all things conventional that make them the second lead. Everyone knows them, but few find relevance with their struggle.

Last, but not least, is Oasis. He is the bad boy, the menacing character that likes to cause problems and attract attention for his antics and not his struggle. This bad boy has a couple of domineering, squabbling brothers (Liam and Noel Gallagher) ruining the moment every chance they get. Still, they make things interesting and that makes them, or him, a must at every party or in every discussion. Oasis’s sound, its simple stripped down guitar sound (I know they stray sometimes, but this is what we all remember) is symbolic here. That simple sound makes them a one-dimensional character on the rock scene, sure to throw a beer bottle into the crowd or throw fists amongst each other in between songs during a set.

Alas, here is the British music scene, a meta-music soap opera that this anglophile cannot stop listening to.

Coldplay’s latest album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, has a mixed critical response. Some appreciate the change from its traditional melodramatic style and some find fault with the album not going far enough off their road to success.

The positive reviews seem content with a familiar sound with a new twist. Chris Martin’s voice is a little lower and the lyrics are a little more abstract with universal themes that will connect everyone in an arena. The album is as tight as the ensembles costumes on stage. The uniforms of soldiers fighting for freedom (taking more of a French Revolution approach than an American Revolution approach, a choice influenced, without a doubt, by the fact that they are British) finds an amicable place with critics like Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.

The critical reviews look at Coldplay and wish they took the road of Radiohead. Critics have compared early Coldplay to early Radiohead. Many of these critics would have liked Coldplay to take the same jump as Radiohead did between The Bends and OK Computer. These critics see the slight influence of the sounds of Latino musical traditions as a mere shuffle of the feet instead of a full step forward.

The question is then what do the critics expect from the band. Coldplay is undeniably popular on a world scale. To appease these critics should they should they alienate fans and work for several commercially soft albums to rebuild the audience, sans Radiohead? Or should Coldplay accept their pop stardom uncomfortably and keep making albums that do not veer too far from the tastes of the people and remain relevant as a band that can sellout an arena and move massive numbers of albums?

Thus is the argument of art versus commerce. Only time will tell what the band does. Do they keep playing rope-a-dope with the criticism, even embracing it, or do they try and find some other artistic aspirations and influences? I do not know. I like Radiohead and would not mind another, but I have a feeling that if they went down that road the same critics would call them posers for trying to infringe on Radiohead’s domain.

It seems fitting that iTunes had its largest digital pre-order for Coldplay’s latest album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. The group pre-sold 288,000 albums, mostly on iTunes, and was perhaps the first to truly usher in the preeminent era of digital downloads.

iTunes had been a terrific vehicle to get that one good song off an otherwise awful or for continuously giving Arrested Development fans hope while Fox did its best to put obstacles (bad weekly timeslots, running the show against the opening ceremonies of the winter Olympics).

Coldplay sold an entire album before it was released. That means that people were paying for 12 tracks with little more than a preview or a liking for the singles that swamped the radio waves. Coldplay’s wide commercial success is most likely the first step in the emerging dominance in the commercial dominance of the Internet over the record store.

Some would argue that Radiohead was the first huge digital success. Radiohead used a donation system, which is essentially giving away the album for free or almost free. The market created buzz for the English group, but it was Coldplay that truly turned a viable profit and not just a marketing strategy with the use of iTunes.

History may look back and lament that a band that is admittedly melodramatic rock pop was the first to break through, but the true test was if a band that was a huge draw could turn its listeners into digital customers.

The next big question is will compact discs find a place in the anti-establishment cool movement like records or will they simply disappear like tapes?

The first week of college is generally a time to make friends, find a party, and learn where classes are. For Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland their orientation week at the University College London in September 1996 that first week was the beginning of the road to a superstardom that they could not fathom. Martin spent the rest of the academic year plotting to start a college band.

That early edition of Coldplay was called the Pectoralz. It consisted of Martin as the lead singer, a backup guitarist, and a pianist and Buckland as the lead guitarist. The two brought in their classmate Guy Berryman, who become the bassist and by 1997 the group, now known as Starfish, was playing little clubs in the Camden section of London. The group kept on picking up friends, with Phil Harvey becoming the manager and Will Champion becoming the drummer, learning to play on the job.

Starfish needed a name, that name came from friend Tim Crompton. Starfish became Coldplay. Crompton had been using the name for his own band, but found the name too depressing. The name would become a staple on radio stations around the world as the new Coldplay quickly found a fan base.

The group found a sound that lands somewhere between Jeff Buckley and Oasis. That melodic alternative, sometimes piano, rock was featured the Safety EP. Distributed mainly to friends and music labels, the EP landed them a deal with the independent label Fierce Panda. In 1999, the first truly commercial release was the Brothers and Sisters EP, a three-track album made over four days in February of 1999. The group stayed cool and completed school before signing with Parlophone Records.

The five-album deal kicked off with the release of The Blue Room EP. Coldplay almost went through its first lineup change during the tense recording sessions. Martin kicked Champion out of the group. Martin took back his words and begged him to come back, new rules creating a democracy that evenly split the profits and banned hard drug use were put in place and the EP yielded a single, “Bigger Stronger,” that earned some air time on Radio 1.

Three EPs and no hits put the group and the label in a difficult position. The group began to make some headway when “Shiver” breached the Top 40 in the UK and finally broke out with the release and popularity of “Yellow”. The song’s heavy music video rotation on MTV took the group from a lucky spot with other struggling new bands on the Carling Tour to the release of their first full-length album, Parachutes, in July of 2000 and their first headlining tour.

Despite criticism for a resemblance of the album to Radiohead’s sound around the time of The Bends, the album won the Mercury Music Prize, a British award for the best album of the year, and debuted as the number one album on the UK charts. The American release of the melodic pop album complete with distorted guitar came months later in November and heavy touring off U.S. clubs in 2001 as well as appearances on popular programs like SNL, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and the Late Show with David Letterman helped the album win over fans and critics alike, winning the Best Alternative Music Album award at the 2002 Grammy Awards.

Coldplay returned to the studios with producer Ken Nelson and quickly recorded A Rush of Blood to the Head. The singles “In My Place,” “Clocks,” and “The Scientist” took over the radio and their music videos were featured on MTV as the group toured five continents following the release of the album in August 2002.

The new album brought a whole new slew of accolades. Rolling Stone’s readers voted the group the best artist and band of the year in 2003. The new album again won Coldplay the Best Alternative Music Album award at the Grammys, but also went one step further and won the Record of the Year for the single “Clocks”.

Two huge hit albums and years of heavy touring left the members of Coldplay exhausted. They went into recluse in 2004, focusing on recording their third album. With a new set of influences from a wide array of sources, including David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, and Kate Bush, the result was the album X&Y.

The album’s release was delay until June 2005 in the UK and Europe, but the change in schedule did nothing to stop the incredible success of the album. Coldplay’s new album was the best selling album that year and single “Speed of Sound” edbuted number one in 22 different countries. Coldplay was now officially a global phenomenon. Now in the forefront of the music world, the group found its new album to be met with harsh critical backlash from some and praise for others, they were called the next U2.

The release was accompanied with the Twisted Logic Tour, a headling tour that embraced festivals like Coachella, Glastonbury, and the Austin City Limits Musical Festival. The group also continued its history of political activism with a performance at