Welll..I have mixed feelings on this one.
On the one hand, you could have argued: What the heck was Bono doing performing onstage with Bob Dylan in 1980? (and he had the guts to forget the lyrics to "Blowin In The Wind" too!
Luckily, Bob was more bemused than anything.)
On the other hand, I'd DEARLY love to know just how anybody from Coldplay managed to get in there with them. The media these days have bent over backwards to hail them as the new U2, and the US media have been the worst of all. And I wish to God that all the other acts out there who are better than they are had such record company support. Their record company is pushing them like NO American band has been pushed for 15 yrs at least. The kind of support American bands should be getting but aren't. I think everyone is lining up bahind them becuase they are SAFE.
I like Coldplay--A LOT--but sorry, they don't deserve the honor. They may be a very good band, that produces some gorgeous songs, and they aspire to U2's "global" slot, but I could think of other canditates the past 10 yrs who deserved it a lot more. Like Live and Radiohead, who are (were) musically MUCH more talented. And I'm sorry, but Chris Martin is a very nice singer, but he turnes me off sometimes. He strikes me as too pushy, too willing to do all the publicity stunts that U2 were NOT willing to do in the 80's to get to the top. Like having a kid with an A-list actress out of wedlock. (Edge did that later on, but not till U2 were established legends and the lady in question did NOT want the realtionship to be publicized. And, of course, she wasn't the kind of person who was a guarunteed headline-grabber. She was anonymous. )
Sometime on the spring leg of the JT Tour, Bono told the audience, "We never wanted to be number one. We never wanted to be on the cover of Time magazine." Looking back, I can't believe how easily I was snookered. They DID want to be Number One. They DID want all those things. But in a sense, Bono was not lying either. He spoke truth. He meant that U2 were not willing to sacrifice their integrity for free publicity at a stage in thier career they felt they did not yet deserve. So many times they could have done things to whore themselves for the media--but they did not. They wanted to develop at their own pace, and let fame and fortune come when they felt God was ready to give it to them. Being a great band was more inportant than getitng your name splahed across the headlines. And they stil lhave this attitude. You find it in the USA Today article. They are not going to hang on and remain in the public eye with the first "crap"album. They did a lot of unconventional things for HTDAAB, but the music was worth fighting for.
I don't want the fanatical fans for Coldplay to flame me for this. I respect them. And like I said, I like them very, very much. But I don't think they have what it takes to takeover U2's slot. And I say this even 2 albums in. 2 albums is tooshort a time for this sort of fame, even in today's frenzied global pace. ESP b/c of today's frantic global pace. Bands are not given time to develop. Such exposure, before they are musically ready for this kind of fame, such vnaked visual pairing with The Greats, is too soon. IN the long run, it isn't a smart career move, not 2 albums and 3 yrs in. They need at least 2 more albums for me to beleive that they have what it takes. Do you think U2 were ready for this kind of fame with Ocotober? (Okay, Ocotober was an artifical screw-up. War, then. War was even flawed in places. They really weren't ready for it until UF, the album that not only established thier individuality but proved they had an enduring fanbase.)
"But," you argue, "Live 8 will be like Live Aid. It will get them that fanbase."
No, it won't. There's one way and ONE WAY ONLY that gets you a fanbase that endures, and unbending adortation. The only place hwere people find out who you are is on the road. And I'm sorry, even on a good night, Coldplay were nowhere NEAR Live. (If you never went to a Live concert in the late 90's, you can't argue. You just CAN'T. The staggering emotional power of Live was like nothing I'd ever felt before in a show--expct U2 and Springsteen. The redemptive power and the love. And the U2 industry just lumped in with the Pumpkins and all the rest of post-grunge and dumped them, and their music afterwards suffered for it....Now they can never be what they were.
It should be them up there, in a place of honor. They could have been one of the greatest acts this cpntry ever produced. They really WERE America's answer to U2. IN every single way..., includng autbiographical...
I could be wrong. They could be emulating U2's (and Live's) penchant for producing sub-level work in order to come up with the genius follow-up. There might be more hidden talent buried there. But I wish he had more confidence in himself and not felt the need for pushiness. This is pushiness in the band sense. It feels like whoredom to me.
x 100
Paul McCartney does everything. Old news. Reunited Pink Floyd. New, exciting news. 
