Why does radiohead hate coldplay

Take longtime Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher, who once described the likes of Coldplay as "bland, faceless fucking trainee police officers. Critical reception of Coldplay has been thawing a bit, too.

Beloved Swedish pop singer Robyn's killer cover of "Mylo Xyloto's" initially panned lead single, "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall," hasn't hurt much, either. Just in time, too. It's definitely where they best balance their obvious desire for artistic respect with their undeniable ability to write songs that throngs of people want to chant along.

This time, they don't do it by making choices that telegraph their seriousness or ambition, though there's an over-arching love story that they wisely keep pretty loose. Instead, Coldplay may well succeed at becoming the world's biggest rock band by redefining what it means to be a "rock" band altogether. Originally conceived as two separate albums, and with a title Martin is coy about explaining, "Mylo Xyloto" oscillates between synthesized Top 40 sheen and hand-played acoustic vulnerability.

In other words, it takes the Coldplay aesthetic -- "equal parts epic and endearing," as SPIN's Chris Martins no relation put it this summer at Lollapalooza -- and realizes it more vividly than ever before. Their small, spare moments are all the more affecting for it, likely to catch more than a few skeptical listeners off guard.

It's not that Coldplay have given up on competing for artistic cachet. Quite the opposite, given how obsessively Martin focuses in the New York Times piece on what Bruce Springsteen and U2 did at similar points in their careers. They're just integrating their influences less obtrusively now. Coldplay's former peers, bands like Keane, Travis, Starsailor, Aqualung and Embrace, are either gone or many leagues below them now. Remember how those first two albums used to remind everybody of "Radiohead lite," but now they only sound like Coldplay?

In a few years, when other rock bands sound like this, we won't compare them to any of their apparent influences: We'll compare them to "Mylo Xyloto. That said, if "Mylo Xyloto" distills Coldplay's essence almost perfectly into a track pop album -- Martin has often said it could be the band's last -- then it also carries with it some of Coldplay's essential faults. The lyrics are often vague at best, trite at worst "Life goes on, it gets so heavy".

The wordless hooks, though so ideal for reaching audiences in non-English-speaking markets, start to feel manipulative; the songwriting workmanlike enough, behind the pristine production, that it's hard to imagine many successful covers. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. This website uses cookies to personalize your content including ads , and allows us to analyze our traffic.

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Read the Shopping Essentials newsletter for unbiased product recommendations every week. Manage Print Subscription. Main Menu Search nationalpost. Though actually, who knows? After all, this one's produced by Brian Eno, and he even managed to make U2 bearable for an album or two.

But Eno's presence begs its own question, of course. I recall an occasion back in the Eighties, when the young Eddie Murphy, his career then in the ascendant, was drafted in to salvage an appalling Dudley Moore comedy called Best Defense, through the insertion of about 10 minutes of extraneous footage of him pootling about in an army tank.

The film was still terrible, and when asked why on earth he had accepted the part, Murphy shrugged and said: "There was a knock at my door, and when I opened it four men came in bearing an enormous cheque. One can only wonder how many musclebound oafs were required to carry the cheque that persuaded Eno to produce Coldplay's new album.

I mean, given his rarefied cultural tastes, surely it can't have been the project highest on Eno's wish-list? And what with all the U2 royalties, he couldn't conceivably need the money. In the event, the album is almost exactly as I expected, if a tad shorter on Big Anthems than the previous three. The rhythms are a bit busier, and a bit more ethnic, and Chris Martin's little falsetto catch — one of modern music's most irritating tropes — has been rationed out more parsimoniously.

Thanks, Eno! Pop's favourite Brianiac has ensured the sonic prerequisites are all in good order. Things like death, and war, and power. It's the new Gold Standard of Average Music. And given the competition currently battling for that dubious honour, this is no mean feat. Almost an achievement, in fact. But don't just take my word for it. Tomorrow you can buy the album and hear for yourself — as will untold millions around the globe. Not Thriller, perhaps, but then For that matter, I have never encountered one person who has a kind word to say about Coldplay.

Indeed, most seem to agree that they epitomise everything that's wrong with modern rock music. So who's buying all their albums? Who are those masses politely arrayed in their thousands at stadiums when Coldplay play? Is it some secret society, an Opus Dei of dreary anthemic music?