Why I Believe X & Y Is Receiving Mixed Reactions:

[roy keane]

X&Y is bananas.Apple will love it

 

[U2girl]

"Corporate rock" is probably what U2 and Coldplay should be classified as. U2 abdicated "anthem rock" after the 1980s and "electronic pop rock" after the 1990s.

"corporate" anything isn't really an insult when it comes to U2, at least since 1987.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I love corporate rock, it makes me feel pleased with my affluence! Don't you want me to enjoy my affluence, Zoomerang96? I don't want to be bored by depresso-music by bands who whine about technology or postmodernism! I jsut twant to hear simple songs sung by simple guys!

 

[U2girl]

I like bands that write songs. I'm glad Coldplay is still writing songs unlike Radiohead, who lost it after an amazing album called OK Computer. Blips, sound effects and overall unintelligible tracks that the band apparantly thinks are songs is just a waste of talent.

 

[gareth brown]

I like bands that write songs. I'm glad Coldplay is still writing songs unlike Radiohead, who lost it after an amazing album called OK Computer. Blips, sound effects and overall unintelligible tracks that the band apparantly thinks are songs is just a waste of talent.

Bollocks. Kid A and Amnesiac are fantastic records! Radiohead are possibly the most exciting, not to mention original band around and calling stuff [that doesn't fit a mould they seemed to conjure up for YOU after OK Computer, eg. Kid A] "a waste of talent" is rubbish. They're just filtering their talent through other means.

And to follow up a rant about "Blips and sound effects" with the following statement

Originally posted by riteshbhatt1
Pop is a good record. Zooropa is AMAZING.

just make me laugh

Zooropa is one of U2's very best albums, NEARLY a Kid A of it's time in the fact that U2 just went and through 'normality/convention' to the wind and experimented just like Radiohead did seven years later...so how you can complain about Kid A and praise Zooropa and techno-fest Pop in the same paragraph confuses me a little bit...

 

[Dalton]

Oh. I thought it was cause the album is boring.

Yup - I just quoted myself.

 

[GibsonGirl]

... techno-fest Pop...

I won't comment on the topic of the original message, as such (though, I will say, Kid A is pure brilliance) but I just felt I should mention something that has been bothering me lately. I can't really see where people are coming from when they say that Pop is a techno album. To me, Pop has always been more rock than techno. I can see elements of techno in probably only about three songs... Mofo (drums/bass), Do You Feel Loved (guitar) and Miami. Other than that...I'm at a loss. Discotheque sounds a bit techno-ish (but really only with Edge's fuzzy guitar). Songs like Last Night On Earth, Gone, Please, Staring At The Sun, and Wake Up Dead Man are just damn good rock songs, in my opinion. I've always thought Zooropa was more techno.

 

[the tourist]

I've only heard Speed Of Sound and I like it.

 

[the tourist]

Zooropa is one of U2's very best albums, NEARLY a Kid A of it's time

I've always thought that U2 and Radiohead had their experimental albums in a different order; I thought Zooropa is more reminiscent of Amnesiac because it still has quite a great deal of pop form, while I think Passengers is more like Kid A.

 

[GibsonGirl]

Yup - I just quoted myself.

It's a good quote too. The only really exciting tracks from the new album, in my opinion, are White Shadows (aka. the song Coldplay kidnapped The Edge for), Square One, Twisted Logic (only because it sounds like Radiohead), and Low. The rest just sounds like the Coldplay of the past.

"You can't sell the same thing to the same old crowd forever."

 

[griffey123]

Wait, wait, wait. Zooropa? One of U2's best? Kid A of its time? Have you heard Kid A? Have you heard Zooropa? There is absolutely no comparison between the two. Kid A was such a radical shift for Radiohead, something virtually unheard of. Zooropa was a small step in a different direction but all the basic portions of U2 are still there. U2 artisically peaked with Achtung Baby and has been making mediorce to good albums since then. Radiohead's has seen a constant revolution in their music and made greater strides musically with Kid A than U2 has in their career. This is not an insult to U2. Kid A is just that different, that revolutionary, that good.

In regards to X&Y, I think its a great album, filled with great leaps forward for the band. Kid A style leaps? No way. OK Computer style leaps? Probably not. But maybe October to War style leaps? Now thats a possibility.

 

[Lancemc]

A few points need to be made here before this conversation continues.

1. Kid A is a fantastic album, but it's not the Christ incarnate. Get over yourself griffey.

2. Hail to the Theif is pure shit. THAT is a waste of talent.

3. You can't compare Zooropa to KID A like they are the same mark in either bands career. Griffey at least got that part right when he stopped jerking off to KID A long enough to type that.

4. Coldplay's X & Y is deffinitely a step in the right direction for Coldplay. They are beginning to play with their own sound a bit more, which is a very good thing (White Shadows is a great example). The new album has more "character" than Rush of blood to the Head.

5. Most importantly, I got my Coldplay tickets this morning.

 

[griffey123]

I am by no means "jerking off" Kid A, nor calling it the Christ incarnate. Its not Radiohead's best album BUT it is the biggest leap in their musical career, which is what the topic was about. While I do enjoy Kid A, I dont have any notions regarding it being the greatest album of all time as Lancemc seems to imply that I'm doing. I'm merely praising the album for its musical inventiveness, something that seemed very natural to Radiohead and came off sounding great as opposed to Zooropa, which seemed forced and came off sounding, well, terrible.

It's nice to see that that Lancemc can have a civilized conversation about something without insulting people though. Thats cool. Nice work pal, You've gained alot of respect from me.

 

[Lancemc]

That's good. You're respect means everything to me.

 

[gareth brown]

Wait, wait, wait. Zooropa? One of U2's best? Kid A of its time? Have you heard Kid A? Have you heard Zooropa? There is absolutely no comparison between the two. Kid A was such a radical shift for Radiohead, something virtually unheard of. Zooropa was a small step in a different direction but all the basic portions of U2 are still there.

a. Yes. Zooropa is one of U2's best.
b. Yes. Kid A is ahead of it's time.
c. Yes. I have heard Zooropa. Without listening to it it's a bit hard to call it "one of U2's best"...
d. Yes. There is plenty of comparison between the two.
e. Yes. Kid A was a radical shift for Radiohead.
f. Yes, Zooropa was a small step in a different direction and kept all the usual U2-esque sounds in there, since they'd been using samples, synths and loops since "Boy" [/sarcasm]

Sarcasm aside...what are you on about? To call Zooropa a small step in a different direction only shows how little you might have listened to it...Achtung Baby was a very big step after two records like 'The Joshua Tree' and 'Rattle and Hum', but 'Zooropa' was pushing it to the extreme.

If you could have played 'Lemon', 'Daddy's Gonna Pay...' and 'Zooropa' to name a few to U2 fans back in 1987 while they were still running around with the 'Joshua Tree'...what would they have thought?? "Oh, it's sounds just the same...!"

To keep my post relevant - I heard "FIX YOU" on Jonathan Ross last night and have to say I understand where people are coming from when saying it sounds the same!!! It's another one of those soft sounding tracks with the final, sparkling ending that will be used on loads of future documentaries in the season finale when the kids graduate and leave college or something, or the blind man finally gets to see again...

 

[Miggy D]

I just have a funny mental image of someone trying to jerk off a CD.

 

[verte76]

I haven't heard X&Y yet, but I loved Parachutes, and AROBTTH...I still think that album is awesome. I remember when I first heard "Clocks" on the radio. I was driving on the Interstate, and I was so blown away I almost had to pull over. When I got home I immediately ordered both AROBTTH and Parachutes on the Internet. If this album sounds like AROBTTH, this definitely means this band has artistic limitations. That being said I love AROBTTH so much I think I can enjoy this new album, even if it's not exactly the most brilliant album I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, I'm a sucker.

 

[elevation2u]

What I don't understand, is why because Miggy D spent time with the album and likes it, his/her (I'M SORRY, SO SORRY!) opinion is more valid?

Not a dig at Miggy, your opinion is yours. But I believe I have also given this album a real chance (I've listened closely, listened as I've gone to bed, had it in the car... etc). And I really think this is a mediocre effort and an album without potential.

Now does that make me a diehard U2 reactionary? Because I don't like the album, does that mean I haven't given it enough of a chance?

Coldplay have tried much much too hard here. A Rush of Blood to the Head was a display in using synths properly to pad out a song. They compliment the sound and create soundscapes unmatched in 2002. Even on Everything's Not Lost on Parachutes, the use of a soft, underlying synth grounded one of the best songs on the album. On X & Y if feels like they are tring to fill sounds that don't need filling by using synths. It creates a complicated sound that has no real direction or purpose, it gives the illusion of being good, but when you listen to it, it really isn't.

The sound is muddy and cold. The problem here is that I honestly don't believe the aim was to create a cold, detatched sound.

'X & Y sees the completion of this musical arc

I don't think so. I believe it is taking an idea too far. Chris Martin is trying oh so hard to sound intellectual, provocative and interesting, when in all seriousness he sounds like a wanker now.

His lines in the first two albums were precise and beautiful, but in this album he is rambling for the sake of rambling. And very cliched.

I believe in X & Y that Coldplay are trying to create an evolved, intelligent sound. However in doing this they have sacrificed their heart and covered up their sound. Leaving the record bare and lifeless.

This was not the time to put out this album, and even if the time was right, this isn't the album they should have put out.

great post ...i, also, have been giving this album much listen and heavy rotation on my ipod hoping that it'll just click and i'll learn to embrace it as the last 2 albums which im quite fond of.
but coldplay seemes to try too hard that it fails, the lyrics are a bit lengthy and to me feel like chris tried too hard and cannot sum up what he wants to say so keeps writing and writing but never arrives. i dont think its a horrible album but i dont think tis as great as the magazine reviews ive read make it out to be. as of now, they mostly have excesswive hype going for them and teenage fans.