Coldplay
 

Like? Dislike? Just gauging this forum's opinion of it.

Come on, if you're gonna do one of these threads gets some guts and state your own opinion first.

We might all laugh, but hey whatever.

I was gonna state my opinion later, but hey, whatever.

I like 'em. I think Viva la Vida and Prospekt's March are definitely better than their preceding stuff, but I still like the preceding stuff.

Your turn.

Alright then, I somewhat like them. Some of their stuff I like a fair bit, but, most of their stuff just fades into the background for me. Nothing really stands out to me as really that great either. Wouldn't buy, but usually won't change the station if they're on the radio.

Once every few years, they make like, one song that sounds just fine. So, with piqued interest, I sample the entire album that has that one fine song on it, only to realize that that is totally the only fine song and the rest is so mediocre and rehashed of either themselves or U2 or whatever "ultra-melancholic super mellow" band you'd like to name.

It is a rule of Coldplay that has never failed and I always forget whenever they release a new album. =(

Do you think that Viva la Vida and Prospekt's March follow that pattern?

(They seem close enough that I classify them as a single album.)

I would agree up until VV and PM (abbreviating is so much easier), whereupon it seems they got their heads out of their asses and made 80% of the songs the "good" song on the album.

I agree completely, except that you got the order reversed. Also, isn't Prospekt just the B-sides EP for Viva, hence why they sound like a singular album.

I actually really like Coldplay, enough to go out of my way to see them in concert around X&Y. Their "peppy Radiohead + U2 bombast" formula is great, especially if you can rise above the overreaching heights the lyrics aspire to.

I think I made a thread a while ago about my initial thoughts on Viva, but it's grown on me. However, I still think it's Coldplay's unneeded attempt at 'edgifying' themselves, and the fact that it still turned out enjoyable is a testament to something.

The only thing that really ever bothers me about them is how easy other bands think it is to become the 'next' Big Arena Rock Band. Keane...well, I don't listen to them, but I don't mind if a show I like uses them (and kudos for making your gimmick work for you), but the Fray needs to find a hole to die in.

I felt like the music itself, not the lyrics, is what makes Viva so good. I loved the variety in it.

In fact, I usually find that instrumental sophistication trumps message when I'm the judge of music.

One word: Boring.

They aren't bad. They're actually pretty alright, but they also have no energy and the only emotions I can read from their music are quiet and muted, almost to the point of apathy. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I just spent a while on the youtubes clicking through random music videos.

Viva la Vida is boring.

Scientist is boring.

Fix You is boring.

Those three also all sound rather similar.

Violet Hill was pretty alright, though.

After the four I just got tired of it, so I quit. If I'm missing something and they actually generally sound closer to Violet Hill, or at least away from the other three songs, I'll retract my opinion. For now, however, I think I'm with Greed on Coldplay. I don't think I'd bother changing the station if they were on, but I don't think I'd ever dow legitimately purchase one of their albums as I do with all the other music I legitimately own.

Different strokes for different members of a given population, I guess.

See, this is the mistake Coldplay keeps making...they never promote their more energetic songs enough. Like this one, which would surely have been one of their most popular ever if they had done anything at all to get people to notice it.

As for me, I really like pretty much all their songs, even the "boring" ones. They're just such a great relief from rap and metal and death-metal and singers who sound like they're trying to sound awful, all of which are really popular these days, and all of which I generally hate. Coldplay just seems to put more effort into actually making good-sounding songs than most bands.

I can understand why some people don't like Coldplay...but I wish I knew where the rampant hatred for them comes from. Some of the "reviews" for their new album were just huge incoherent rant-fests that said absolutely nothing about the music itself. I've never heard of that happening to any other bands. People are just weird sometimes, I guess.

White Shadows was alright, I suppose. Still pretty blase, over all, though.

Also, I would like to point out that one doesn't need to be rap, or metal, or death-metal to not be boring. It's perfectly possible to be melodic and still contain powerful emotions and create music that draws you in as opposed to falling into the background as Coldplay tends to (for me and others at least).

Take Voltaire, Rufus Wainwright, or, hell, even Chopin as examples.

None of them are harsh fast music. They're all melodic, and two of the examples are even melancholy. However they also aren't boring. They catch you, draw you in, and communicate emotion to you. Coldplay lacks this. That's why they're boring.

Not because they're mellow.

Coldplay was voted as the band most likely to put you to sleep, or something along those lines.

I like them, but yeah, I generally listen to them when I'm in a mood to just sorta chill out. They're good for taking naps on the bus, too.

A major problem is, even though there's some pretty good instrumentals going on there, Chris Martin's vocals are most often merely adequate.Yeah, he's singing these songs technically well, but he's not there in the song. He's phoning it in.

I don't hate them, but I don't really like them either. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to them, and I might turn the radio if they were on, but I can't really hate them. They're not annoying like the songs they play on "Today's number one hit music station" (which plays the worst songs ever), but they just don't hold my attention enough. There's no real focus in the songs I've heard. They're like Radiohead without the hooks that draw me into the song.

Wasoe did a mashup with Coldplay that's not too bad.

You Like Science

I um...I like that Coldplay is getting sued by Joe Satriani for stealing Viva la Vida's melody.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/160...coldplay.jhtml

I must agree. I've never found them able to hold my attention.

I find them pretty boring. But I don't hate them, I can listen to them but I'd rather listen to something that really grabs my attention, like Boston or Queen.

I can't exactly point out what makes Coldplay boring, but they just seem that way to me.

Coldplay's songs all sound the same to me. The melodys, the messages, the vibe, the singing; it's all the same. I do like to listen to them when I am in need of sleep.

I like Viva la Vida but then I hear they are getting sued over it because they plagiarized the melody from Joe Satriani. Good job, Coldplay. Good job.

I agree with the boring vibe.
It's not that they're bad, they're just kind of there. LIke they just background music. I wouldn't turn them off but I wouldn't go out to get them.

Also I have an irrational dislike of Chris Martin. He just seems like a prat to me. I not basing this off anything, just a vibe.

...Allegedly. I mean, the songs are similar for a whole 3 notes/chords in a row and otherwise completely different. And the lawsuit popped up right after the song got nominated for lots of Grammies...what a coincidence. I can't understand how this claim made it all the way to a lawsuit.

I don't really get why so many people think they're boring, but that sort of thing is pretty subjective.

Honestly, just about any song can be shown to be "plagiarized" from an earlier song in the same manner that Viva la Vida is from Satriani's song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEGGFJLpbu4&NR=1

That breaks it down pretty well...

and from the creator of that video

Well, considering that:
- The songs are only similar in certain parts, and otherwise completely different
- The chorus from Satriani's song (guitar) is similar to some of the verses from Coldplay's song (vocal); no part of it was obviously directly copied

and:
- There are an absurd number of songs out there, and almost as many people with a mysterious grudge against Coldplay
- There are surprisingly few ways to arrange notes in a sequence that doesn't sound horrible (and if you don't believe me, a quick Google found this...about 35 seconds in there's a guitar solo amazingly similar to Satriani's. But he didn't copy them; he just had the same relatively simple idea.)

...it really seems more likely that Coldplay and Satriani just had similar ideas independently. I mean, heck, the last time Coldplay used someone else's chord progression (for "Talk"), they got permission and gave writing credits and everything. Most bands would just wing it and hope no one noticed.

Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I like most of their songs, but, yeah, some of them are boring. Not extremely boring ( like Snow Patrol* ) but still a bit. Glass of Water is pretty good, btw.

*= I try to like Snow Patrol, but I just can't. Their songs seem to never actually change from the initial part. I expect songs to have different parts, usually having the chorus being a bit faster than the start, Snow Patrol fails to do it everywhere but in Open Your Eyes, and even then, the fast part repeats for too long.

Don't you mean exactly the same except for the fills that Satriani has inbetween the accented notes?'

Edit: Flattery > Copyright law. Obviously.

And Mondt displays what TheSparrow was talking about. Good show!

I'd just like to point out that sampling music from others used to be common practice in music, and actually created multiple entire genres and subcultures of music.

So in so much as, you know, fuck Coldplay, I hope they win this one. I'd really like to see sampling parts (and especially merely replaying the same notes with the same, or even different, instruments) of songs like that to be unregulated by copyright law.

It also created Ice Ice Baby, so the blade cuts both ways.

No, I mean that plus all the sections of both songs that no one is talking about (choruses of Coldplay song plus most of the song after the first chorus, second 75% of Satriani's song), which are not similar in the slightest. The parts of both songs that are similar are not only very simple, but as I already pointed out, have been done before Satriani or Coldplay used them.

Edit: And no, of course they aren't "exactly the same"; the songs use a lot of the same notes in some areas, but also a lot of different notes in the same areas.

Redundant, pointless antagonism? None of us are judging this case. I'm just trying to hold off the probably inevitable hate-fest.

By the way, Beethoven copied an 8-note sequence directly from a piece by Mozart for part of his 5th symphony; but interestingly enough, no one hates him for it.

Well, evolving an artform is always a communal, societal effort. Just look at the key word there: Stop, collaborate, and listen.

That's how Ice was back with his brand new invention.

Well there's sampling and then's theres just reproducing a whole song.

You could steal a single riff from Metallica and they would be up in arms.

You don't have to steal a whole song to plagiarize it. It's plagiarizing to copy a single sentence without referencing it in a paper, why isn't music the same?

That's just it, it is.

Except for when it isn't.

It's not plagiarism if the artist had no idea they were the same. It's entirely possible that Coldplay simply didn't realize how similar the two songs were.

All artists that sample have to credit the song they sample and pay a fee or royalties...or get sued into oblivion (See KMFDM, re: The original 'Naive' album and Biz Markie, re: "I need a haircut")

And sampling or not, you're taking someone elses idea and making money off of it. Even if its only a small bit of it.

its possible and the chord progression doesn't really bother me but the melody does.

They are terribly similar.

It is the same, but this is more like using the same 2 or 3 words in a row that someone else used, and getting complaints from them even though lots of other people used that phrase before either of you, and it isn't a particularly creative phrase anyway. I didn't even mention plagiarism there; I was just contradicting this:

Edit: Again, yes, the melody is very similar in some places, but also extremely simple. Is it really so surprising that, out of the millions of pop songs made in the past few years, one of them ended up using the same 3-note riff, along with a similar background melody because it's one of the few background melodies (of such extreme simplicity) that goes well with that riff? Music isn't random; certain sounds go well together, but most don't.

The problem is that not only is the chord progression that the coldplay song seems based on nearly the same as the Satriani chorus, but added the fact that the tempo and meter are basically the same too, and it you can see where it looks like it may very well have been stolen. I am not saying it was, but there is certainly enough similarity that it warrants a look.

Except that's actually not what happened at all with the Amen Break. In fact it was sped up slightly and copyrighted by an entirely different entity than the original copyright holder, meaning it is owned by at least two different legal entities, one a company one a person.

Also, that was not always the case, nor should it be the case now (though it is).

Did you watch the video? Because you should.

Taking someone else's idea and making money/popularity/whatever else off of it is pretty much how our entire artistic culture evolved.

I like a couple of their songs, but I've never cared enough to actually buy their music. I could never stand Clocks, though. I guess having a bad reaction at least means that it's memorable, right?