Tag: Coldplay

100 for 2000 – #25. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To the Head

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2002 – #5. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To the Head
(Capitol)

This is, I think, the highest selling album on this list of 100, and by some margin. Amazing that 7 years down the line, Coldplay are still friggin huge. And even though everyone knew them already, it was with A Rush Of Blood to the Head that I discovered a place for Coldplay in my life.

Now, I thought Coldplay sucked. Like sucked HARD. I remember, on their first record, comparing them to a quick wank – satisfying and ultimately pathetic. Such moody, whiny bunch of middle class knobs.

That’s exactly how I felt when I walked into the big tent in Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass festival. It was raining, I just got into a fight with someone, and I was sulking, I wanted to be alone (with a large crowd and the festival headliner). And then Coldplay took to the stage.

And they blew me away.

This terrible, rainy night, on comes Coldplay – ever positive and ever pleasing, even when you don’t want to be pleased. Starts with a smile, and ends with a sing-along. They opened with Politik, the song that opens this album, and I never knew Coldplay could be so loud.

By the time Chris Martin went to the piano, and sang the Scientist, I was hooked. I’ve been a casual fan ever since, and will defend them to the hilt. They want to please people. Get over it.

The rest of that terrible, rainy night went by ok after that.

I’m sure better in depth studies on this album and it’s historical impact can be found elsewhere. I wont bother you with those.

Tuesday Tunes: Coldplay – LeftRightLeftRightLeft


We recently wrote about how much we thought Coldplay were making all the right moves for a new modern huge rock band. So-called ‘hit’ albums by Springsteen, U2, Keane, Snow Patrol and Razorlight have all come and gone, but ‘Viva La Vida’ and Coldplay keep steaming on.

Now they have released a free live album – called LeftRightLeftRightLeft – as a thank you to the fans. All it costs is an email address, and for fans they have already signed up.

Can we just marvel that the biggest band in the world is giving stuff away? Puts lesser bands (every other band on the planet) to shame really.

And hey, some of you don’t like Coldplay and will never like Coldplay. That’s fine. We still think giving a live album away is cool.

Get the whole thing here – http://lrlrl.coldplay.com/leftright.html

Viva “Viva La Vida”

Coldplay live Birmingham 2009 - from Life Is Calling
Coldplay live Birmingham 2009 - from Life Is Calling

Has it really been a year since Viva La Vida? Coldplay are in the headlines again, this time thanks to the former Cat Stevens.

Silly plagiarism cases aside, we really enjoyed the Coldplay album (definitely a step up), but we really love how they made all the right moves – yet again – with their fans. As it’s almost been a year, we thought we would look back at all the cool things they did.

Firstly, we at GLF really loved how there wasn’t a super expensive, existing-fans-only package. Everyone is welcome and equal in Coldplay’s world. Even when there was a bonus edition, Coldplay took the almost forgotten step of making the EP (named Prospekt’s March) available separately. And it wasn’t a bunch of terrible remixes or the sound of Brian Eno scraping a barrel. Heck, two of the songs from the EP became singles. One of them Life In Technicolor II, we think is the best track on both sets.

Secondly, they did great small launch shows, before launching on a real man’s world tour. Starting with those small club shows in New York and London (also a lovely live set on the front steps of the BBC for passers by), it escalated to a tour of the world’s biggest stadiums. And when we mean world, we don’t just mean the Us and Europe. From Singapore to Perth to Mexico, Coldplay are going everywhere, and playing to record crowds by doing it (who else is there to see?). And they are not just stopping by once. They have gone back and forth, playing countries like Germany in 3 cities before moving on. Dates run until September this year, ending in London’s Wembley Stadium. Yes, support for those shows will be Girls Aloud. At least it’s different.

Third, they have been great to the fans. We handed over our email addresses to get that free download of Violet Hill over a year ago. We don’t read every word, but the not over whelming amount of mail we get from Coldplay is usually great. Lots of prizes like signed setlists, plectrums and more in every mail. There’s updates from “Roadie #42”, our friend on the inside of the Coldplay camp, giving us access from backstage. We also love “The Oracle“, and place for people to ask any question. Find silly facts like Coldplay uses Macs (good boys)! It’s quite funny. Oh and don’t forget their Twitter, MySpace and YouTube sites. The occasionally free Mp3 for no reason. They are really active and engaging fans. At a level never before tried by a band.

Lastly, they have just announced a free CD giveaway on all their (non-festival) shows this year. The CD, called ‘LeftRightLeftRightLeft’, contains nine live tracks, all of recent vintage. You can download the tracks for free from the site, or pick up a disc shaped souvenir at a show.

So they may not be your favourite band, but darn it, Coldplay are doing very well at being a HUGE band. We are sitting in May and the U2 and Bruce Springsteen albums of this year are already history. Yet people can’t get enough of Coldplay. We like them, and we like what they try to do, and it has been a joy to casually follow this band for the last year. How many bands can you say that about?

After the jump, the very funny film clip for Life In Technicolour ii

(more…)

Who are the stars of Twitter?

Britney - 1,307,612
Britney - 1,307,612

Ashton Kutcher made headlines by beating CNN to a million followers on Twitter. But who are the music stars on Twitter?

Britney Spears has blitzed the 1 million mark right behind Kutcher and CNN. Today she is on 1.307,497 followers. Other stars?

As of May 4th, 2009 – John Mayer comes close with 948,413, P Diddy has 804,531 Coldplay sits on 722,533. We couldn’t find any other musicians over the half a million mark other than Dave Matthews who has 558,618. Trent Reznor bubbles just under at 438,868.

(Can you find anymore? Please let us know in comments).

It doesn’t bode well for Twitter being a place to discover music, especially new music. Even artists considered to cutting edge, like Lily Allen, hasn’t broken the 100K mark. The stars on Twitter seem to be existing megastars – not the next breaking wave, like in Myspace.

And of course, many of those megastar acts don’t have Myspace. U2, Kings Of Leon, Metallica and Radiohead are represented by fan twitters. The Killer’s ‘official’ page has but one post, four months old. There’s a big gap, and music fans on Twitter are bound to have a unsatisfactory experience.

This comes hot on the heels of the news that Twitter is not shaping up to be the future. News this week shows that 60% of Twitter’s audience do not return to the site in the following month. In short, not much is happening on there.

What will come of it now? It seems that almost everyone has heard of Twitter by now, but how does it explain it’s low numbers, and lack of activity?

Maybe Facebook and Google both made the right call to NOT buy Twitter…

Britney Spears –http://twitter.com/britneyspears
John Mayer –http://twitter.com/johncmayer
P Diddy – http://twitter.com/iamdiddy
Coldplay – http://twitter.com/coldplay
Dave Matthews – http://twitter.com/DaveJMatthews
Trent Reznor –http://twitter.com/trent_reznor

(An aside – my twitter – http://twitter.com/yauami – seems to have more and more spam followers. Something’s got to give)