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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Bags on June 05, 2005, 11:01:00 pm
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Hmm, this should start some forum tongues wagging...
June 5, 2005
The Case Against Coldplay
By JON PARELES
The New York Times
THERE'S nothing wrong with self-pity. As a spur to songwriting, it's right up there with lust, anger and greed, and probably better than the remaining deadly sins. There's nothing wrong, either, with striving for musical grandeur, using every bit of skill and studio illusion to create a sound large enough to get lost in. Male sensitivity, a quality that's under siege in a pop culture full of unrepentant bullying and machismo, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, no matter how risible it can be in practice. And building a sound on the lessons of past bands is virtually unavoidable.
But put them all together and they add up to Coldplay, the most insufferable band of the decade.
This week Coldplay releases its painstakingly recorded third album, "X&Y" (Capitol), a virtually surefire blockbuster that has corporate fortunes riding on it. (The stock price plunged for EMI Group, Capitol's parent company, when Coldplay announced that the album's release date would be moved from February to June, as it continued to rework the songs.)
"X&Y" is the work of a band that's acutely conscious of the worldwide popularity it cemented with its 2002 album, "A Rush of Blood to the Head," which has sold three million copies in the United States alone. Along with its 2000 debut album, "Parachutes," Coldplay claims sales of 20 million albums worldwide. "X&Y" makes no secret of grand ambition.
Clearly, Coldplay is beloved: by moony high school girls and their solace-seeking parents, by hip-hop producers who sample its rich instrumental sounds and by emo rockers who admire Chris Martin's heart-on-sleeve lyrics. The band emanates good intentions, from Mr. Martin's political statements to lyrics insisting on its own benevolence. Coldplay is admired by everyone - everyone except me.
It's not for lack of skill. The band proffers melodies as imposing as Romanesque architecture, solid and symmetrical. Mr. Martin on keyboards, Jonny Buckland on guitar, Guy Berryman on bass and Will Champion on drums have mastered all the mechanics of pop songwriting, from the instrumental hook that announces nearly every song they've recorded to the reassurance of a chorus to the revitalizing contrast of a bridge. Their arrangements ascend and surge, measuring out the song's yearning and tension, cresting and easing back and then moving toward a chiming resolution. Coldplay is meticulously unified, and its songs have been rigorously cleared of anything that distracts from the musical drama.
Unfortunately, all that sonic splendor orchestrates Mr. Martin's voice and lyrics. He places his melodies near the top of his range to sound more fragile, so the tunes straddle the break between his radiant tenor voice and his falsetto. As he hops between them - in what may be Coldplay's most annoying tic - he makes a sound somewhere between a yodel and a hiccup. And the lyrics can make me wish I didn't understand English. Coldplay's countless fans seem to take comfort when Mr. Martin sings lines like, "Is there anybody out there who / Is lost and hurt and lonely too," while a strummed acoustic guitar telegraphs his aching sincerity. Me, I hear a passive-aggressive blowhard, immoderately proud as he flaunts humility. "I feel low," he announces in the chorus of "Low," belied by the peak of a crescendo that couldn't be more triumphant about it.
In its early days, Coldplay could easily be summed up as Radiohead minus Radiohead's beat, dissonance or arty subterfuge. Both bands looked to the overarching melodies of 1970's British rock and to the guitar dynamics of U2, and Mr. Martin had clearly heard both Bono's delivery and the way Radiohead's Thom Yorke stretched his voice to the creaking point.
Unlike Radiohead, though, Coldplay had no interest in being oblique or barbed. From the beginning, Coldplay's songs topped majesty with moping: "We're sinking like stones," Mr. Martin proclaimed. Hardly alone among British rock bands as the 1990's ended, Coldplay could have been singing not only about private sorrows but also about the final sunset on the British empire: the old opulence meeting newly shrunken horizons. Coldplay's songs wallowed happily in their unhappiness.
"Am I a part of the cure / Or am I part of the disease," Mr. Martin pondered in "Clocks" on "A Rush of Blood to the Head." Actually, he's contagious. Particularly in its native England, Coldplay has spawned a generation of one-word bands - Athlete, Embrace, Keane, Starsailor, Travis and Aqualung among them - that are more than eager to follow through on Coldplay's tremulous, ringing anthems of insecurity. The emulation is spreading overseas to bands like the Perishers from Sweden and the American band Blue Merle, which tries to be Coldplay unplugged.
A band shouldn't necessarily be blamed for its imitators - ask the Cure or the Grateful Dead. But Coldplay follow-throughs are redundant; from the beginning, Coldplay has verged on self-parody. When he moans his verses, Mr. Martin can sound so sorry for himself that there's hardly room to sympathize for him, and when he's not mixing metaphors, he fearlessly slings clichés. "Are you lost or incomplete," Mr. Martin sings in "Talk," which won't be cited in any rhyming dictionaries. "Do you feel like a puzzle / you can't find your missing piece."
Coldplay reached its musical zenith with the widely sampled piano arpeggios that open "Clocks": a passage that rings gladly and, as it descends the scale and switches from major to minor chords, turns incipiently mournful. Of course, it's followed by plaints: "Tides that I tried to swim against / Brought me down upon my knees."
On "X&Y," Coldplay strives to carry the beauty of "Clocks" across an entire album - not least in its first single, "Speed of Sound," which isn't the only song on the album to borrow the "Clocks" drumbeat. The album is faultless to a fault, with instrumental tracks purged of any glimmer of human frailty. There is not an unconsidered or misplaced note on "X&Y," and every song (except the obligatory acoustic "hidden track" at the end, which is still by no means casual) takes place on a monumental soundstage.
As Coldplay's recording budgets have grown, so have its reverberation times. On "X&Y," it plays as if it can already hear the songs echoing across the world. "Square One," which opens the album, actually begins with guitar notes hinting at the cosmic fanfare of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (and "2001: A Space Odyssey"). Then Mr. Martin, never someone to evade the obvious, sings about "the space in which we're traveling."
As a blockbuster band, Coldplay is now looking over its shoulder at titanic predecessors like U2, Pink Floyd and the Beatles, pilfering freely from all of them. It also looks to an older legacy; in many songs, organ chords resonate in the spaces around Mr. Martin's voice, insisting on churchly reverence.
As Coldplay's music has grown more colossal, its lyrics have quietly made a shift on "X&Y." On previous albums, Mr. Martin sang mostly in the first person, confessing to private vulnerabilities. This time, he sings a lot about "you": a lover, a brother, a random acquaintance. He has a lot of pronouncements and advice for all of them: "You just want somebody listening to what you say," and "Every step that you take could be your biggest mistake," and "Maybe you'll get what you wanted, maybe you'll stumble upon it" and "You don't have to be alone." It's supposed to be compassionate, empathetic, magnanimous, inspirational. But when the music swells up once more with tremolo guitars and chiming keyboards, and Mr. Martin's voice breaks for the umpteenth time, it sounds like hokum to me.
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Originally posted by Bags:
Hmm, this should start some forum tongues wagging...
June 5, 2005
The Case Against Coldplay
By JON PARELES
The New York Times
hilarious.
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Quite entertaining and well written...
I've never really gotten the big deal about Coldplay. And personally they make me want to spit now with the tix prices they are charging. :o
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Originally posted by Bags:
In its early days, Coldplay could easily be summed up as Radiohead minus Radiohead's beat, dissonance or arty subterfuge.
funny and well-written piece ... and while i agree with the final conclusion (i dont really like the band), i think this argument (which is the crux of the piece) is kind of lazy
he's dissing coldplay mainly for not "pushing the envelope" musically and not using "dissonance or arty subterfuge" like radiohead ... the problem with most rock nerds is that they often give good reviews to straightforward, uncomplicated pop (see annie, powerpop, twee, etc), as long as its not commercially successful ... but once a band sells records they open themselves up to the "they're just a watered-down radiohead" complaints
now i really dont like coldplay that much, but it's not because they lack "radiohead's arty subterfuge and dissocance", and i bet this guy likes plenty of bands that meet that description too
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yeah, I don't really like Coldplay either, but it seemed like he wanted to write a funny rant, and then tried to come up with rational reasons for the rant, and that kind of fell flat.
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" Particularly in its native England, Coldplay has spawned a generation of one-word bands - Athlete, Embrace, Keane, Starsailor, Travis and Aqualung among them"
I'd be the last person to defend Coldplay, but Embrace, Starsailor and Travis were recording songs before (Starsailor may have been about the same time) Parachutes, so were not spawned by them. The author of the article seemed more interested in the "emo" lyrics....I can't stand the band because of their repetive, boring song structures.
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Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
he's dissing coldplay mainly for not "pushing the envelope" musically and not using "dissonance or arty subterfuge" like radiohead ... the problem with most rock nerds is that they often give good reviews to straightforward, uncomplicated pop (see annie, powerpop, twee, etc), as long as its not commercially successful ... but once a band sells records they open themselves up to the "they're just a watered-down radiohead" complaints
now i really dont like coldplay that much, but it's not because they lack "radiohead's arty subterfuge and dissocance", and i bet this guy likes plenty of bands that meet that description too
I think the point is not that Coldplay makes "simple, uncomplicated pop", but that they do it in such a calculated, bloodless, orchestrated, overwrought, self-important, boring, "passive-agressive blowhard" sort of way. I don't think that you'd describe most current power-pop/indie-pop bands like this. Say, Fountains of Wayne or the New Pornographers. The Parales piece was a bit of a letdown after seeing the headline; I wonder if his editors made him overly qualify himself.
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One good point that I thought the article made is that Coldplay songs now revolve almost totally around Chris Martin (his voice and piano). I loved the first album because almost every song had a really interesting guitar part that gave it a snakey twist or a weird vibe. They didn't exactly bury his voice, but the key component that I remember from Yellow or Shiver or Spies is the guitar. The second album had a couple interesting guitar parts, but at that point, it was all about Chris's voice and piano.
I have to admit that I think Speed of Sound is a really pretty song, but Coldplay has lost what made them interesting in the first place.
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Originally posted by Mr Dodgy Slapper:
" Particularly in its native England, Coldplay has spawned a generation of one-word bands - Athlete, Embrace, Keane, Starsailor, Travis and Aqualung among them"
I'd be the last person to defend Coldplay, but Embrace, Starsailor and Travis were recording songs before (Starsailor may have been about the same time) Parachutes, so were not spawned by them. The author of the article seemed more interested in the "emo" lyrics....I can't stand the band because of their repetive, boring song structures.
Not to mention the trend of one-word band titles for the Brits started a good ten years before Coldplay; Blur, Pulp, Placebo, Oasis, and Radiohead, anyone?
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Coldplay's Album Cover Decoded (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1503742/20050608/coldplay.jhtml?headlines=true&_requestid=73229)
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Is the album even out yet? I'm already weary of it all....(though I will keep my mouth shut as I will soak up every bit of inane publicity surrounding the Foo album...).
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Originally posted by Bags:
Is the album even out yet? I'm already weary of it all....(though I will keep my mouth shut as I will soak up every bit of inane publicity surrounding the Foo album...).
Yeah, I think it came out Tuesday. I have their first two, but really don't care much to pick up this new one.
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I think the album is brilliant. Sadly most people who write about music don't have the first clue as to what it takes to write a song and how making things sound simple and effortless is most of the time harder than being "studenty" about it...
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I'm pretty sure their albums are case enough against Coldplay.
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Alright, were's all the bloody Coldplay fans??? When I made a comment that wasn't exactly praising them I was pretty much attacked by everyone except dodgy slapper, now you're all on the bash Coldplay bandwagon.
Over here in spud-land, some are saying Coldplay are going to knock U2 off their "greatest rock band to ever grace a stage" pedestal. I laugh mockingly at such a comment, but on the other hand....at least Martin won't be as self-righteous and as much an interferring do-gooder who actually knows squat about what he's preaching about, at least I hope not. Naw...that's would be impossible.
I still predict that in 2 years time you'll all be saying "cold what?"
For the record...U2 definately do a great live show. Their shows seem so rehersed though(which they are) and just as much a visual as they are musical. Oasis is much more spontaneous, raw and energetic, which for me anyway, is what a rock concert should be.
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this thread isn't worth a coldplay fan's response that's why... :mad:
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well if everyone is currently on the coldplay backlash, guess it will just mean nissan will be a little bit more empty :)
FWIW the new coldplay album is quite good. upon first listen i enjoyed it a lot!
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Originally posted by amnesiac:
Coldplay's Album Cover Decoded (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1503742/20050608/coldplay.jhtml?headlines=true&_requestid=73229)
I hope I'm not the only one that thinks this is really fuckin' cool.
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I love Britpop...I was way into Blur, Oasis, the Charlatans, Travis, etc. I still enjoy a lot of that music. However, Coldplay does nothing for me. Why? Chris Martin. I don't relate to him, I don't like the sound of his voice. That part about the yelp/hiccup thing is priceless. Coldplay isn't a bad band, but I just really don't feel the need to own their music because it doesn't translate into what GREAT music should be to my ears. They are inoffensive, but they also lack that certain something that catches my ear and makes me actually ENJOY them.
This is the thing. You can have an artist (for example) like Elliott Smith, who taps into a subconscious. There are some musicians who are great at being the sensitive guy/girl who sighs a lot and would rather sit with an acoustic guitar and let you peer into their sad, hollow souls. But the thing is that their lyrics and music are so vibrant that you realize there is no faking or b.s. happening.
In Elliott's case, his visions and alienation come through, his songs connect into that part of the human psyche where it seems as though life revolves around love, hurt, beauty, pain, relationships, interactions, experience. In other words, there is a rawness that isn't always nice, but we can truly feel what he is telling us and we RELATE. For example, when Elliott sang "why would you want any other when you're a world within a world?" it spoke volumes...his images were striking because they never seemed contrived and he never insulted our intelligence.
I get the impression that Chris Martin wants to be that kind of songwriter that we connect with and swoon for, but he also wants to spoon feed us. From what I've heard of Coldplay, they're the type of band that water down the ugliness in an effort to appeal to more folks, and as a result the music loses that realness. Life ain't always pretty or nice, but when someone tries to be nice it comes across as dull. It's a double-edged sword. How do you be earnest without being boring or whiney? The ultimate mistake a lot of artists make is when they start believing they're great and then they stop making music for themselves...instead, they start making what they THINK people want to hear, and that's the kiss of death. (Moby being a perfect example...and I remember seeing an interview with Peter Frampton where he said this was true.)
My guess is that Chris Martin is under a lot of pressure, it doesn't help that he's putting himself in the spotlight by marrying someone like that Paltrow girl. It's tough when everyone wants you to sell records and then become the next U2 or whatever. I don't envy Coldplay because what happens to them with this record determines their long-term success. They're not an evil horrible band by any means, but they definitely are one that I feel complete indifference towards.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by amnesiac:
Coldplay's Album Cover Decoded (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1503742/20050608/coldplay.jhtml?headlines=true&_requestid=73229)
I hope I'm not the only one that thinks this is really fuckin' cool. [/b]
why is it cool?
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Originally posted by bearman:
Coldplay...I feel complete indifference towards.
Thank you for the inspiration of my next album title:
Indifference in a 500 Word Essay
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Originally posted by sonickteam4:
why is it cool?
One step closer to being the only one...
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Does anyone remember seeing Coldplay opening for someone at the 930. Maybe I'm suffering from dementia...but I seem to recall they did play there on the first US tour.
Not that I'd pay the ridiculous amounts of money required to see them in huge arenas these days. When they first came out, that whole low-key Britpop sound was relatively fresh and interesting. It's been flogged to death since then (boy, sounds like the way people crapped all over STP after SP, PJ, Nirvana, etc flooded the airways). I don't find Coldplay offensive. I rather enjoy their stuff but only as background music or something I'd pay $15 for at the Club.
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Originally posted by O'Mankie:
Over here in spud-land, some are saying Coldplay are going to knock U2 off their "greatest rock band to ever grace a stage" pedestal. I laugh mockingly at such a comment, but on the other hand....at least Martin won't be as self-righteous and as much an interferring do-gooder who actually knows squat about what he's preaching about, at least I hope not. Naw...that's would be impossible.
How long before Bono announces his intention to run for office?
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Ha ha ha...I can laugh at myself Vansmack, and you're right. But I'm NOT indifferent to what I perceive to be good music and I think it's actually kind of fun to speculate what will happen to a band like Coldplay. That's the thing about the music business...a band like Travis never made it, but Coldplay sold a lot more records and yet Travis seemed to have more personality, more appeal (they're not bad-looking guys or mopey), and better songs. I guess sometimes marketing and timing have a lot to do with it. Also, I think that the original article makes a valid point that Coldplay just doesn't seem as interesting as a lot of other bands, and yet they have managed to tap into something that a lot of folks enjoy and like. You can count me in the minority like the writer who aren't buying into it. Our opinions ultimately mean nothing, but it's fun to chime in on the Band of the Moment.
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Originally posted by xcanuck:
Does anyone remember seeing Coldplay opening for someone at the 930. Maybe I'm suffering from dementia...but I seem to recall they did play there on the first US tour.
I'm pretty sure their first US gig was KROQ Acoutsic Xmas in LA in like 2000. Then in 2001 I drove to Philly to see them play with Grandaddy (sort of a co-headline thing although Coldplay came on last), and finally they played the 9:30 in the summer of 2002 - they definitely headlined that gig. They may have played an HFS gig in DC before then that you might be thinking about - like the HFS Nutcracker thing or soemthing?
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Then in 2001 I drove to Philly to see them play with Grandaddy (sort of a co-headline thing although Coldplay came on last
I saw them on this tour at Radio City Music Hall. So many people left after they played "Yellow." Amazing - they paid $20+ to hear one song...
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Originally posted by novadancer:
this thread isn't worth a coldplay fan's response that's why... :mad:
Don't feel bad, someone's got to like bad music! I swear it was me that said "the masses are asses."
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Originally posted by bearman:
Ha ha ha...I can laugh at myself Vansmack, and you're right. But I'm NOT indifferent to what I perceive to be good music
I was just taking the piss. I can see how many people feel the same way about Coldplay as you do.
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Originally posted by xcanuck:
(boy, sounds like the way people crapped all over STP after SP, PJ, Nirvana, etc flooded the airways)
not that it really matters to this discussion, but i thought STP came a year or two after all those bands, and that's why people crapped all over their watered down and derivative tunage
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Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
Originally posted by xcanuck:
(boy, sounds like the way people crapped all over STP after SP, PJ, Nirvana, etc flooded the airways)
not that it really matters to this discussion, but i thought STP came a year or two after all those bands, and that's why people crapped all over their watered down and derivative tunage [/b]
Dont forget about thier irrelavance!
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also called scrunge
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Originally posted by sonickteam4:
Dont forget about thier irrelavance!
great use of vocab!!
you're really coming along sonick, i'm proud.
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Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
Originally posted by sonickteam4:
Dont forget about thier irrelavance!
great use of vocab!!
you're really coming along sonick, i'm proud. [/b]
Which says nothing of your spelling.....
Their
Relevance
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Originally posted by O'Mankie:
...at least Martin won't be as self-righteous and as much an interferring do-gooder who actually knows squat about what he's preaching about, at least I hope not. Naw...that's would be impossible.
Are you kidding, Mank? He's already on the way, and starting at a much earlier time in his career than the beloved Bono....
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
Originally posted by sonickteam4:
Dont forget about thier irrelavance!
great use of vocab!!
you're really coming along sonick, i'm proud. [/b]
Which says nothing of your spelling.....
Their
Relevance [/b]
screw you. i am at work. doesnt criticizing someone for TYPOS get old?
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Originally posted by sonickteam4:
screw you. i am at work. doesnt criticizing someone for TYPOS get old?
Lighten up, I was kidding.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by sonickteam4:
screw you. i am at work. doesnt criticizing someone for TYPOS get old?
Lighten up, I was kidding. [/b]
Sorry
<img src="http://www.climnet.org/publicawareness/images/light%20bulb.jpg" alt=" - " />
I'm just sayin
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Don't feel bad, someone's got to like bad music! I swear it was me that said "the masses are asses."
Just because someone likes music that you don't like does not mean, first that it's bad and second, that I'm in the masses. I haven't listened to the radio in over a year, and I probably see as many of the same shows as all you board "regulars". I am SO sick of this crap! And just when I finally got the upgrade from junior member. Oh well. tata to everyone 'xcept xneverwherex and kurosawa. :cool:
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Originally posted by sonickteam4:
I'm just sayin
There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?
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Originally posted by novadancer:
Don't feel bad, someone's got to like bad music! I swear it was me that said "the masses are asses."
Just because someone likes music that you don't like does not mean, first that it's bad and second, that I'm in the masses. I haven't listened to the radio in over a year, and I probably see as many of the same shows as all you board "regulars". I am SO sick of this crap! And just when I finally got the upgrade from junior member. Oh well. tata to everyone 'xcept xneverwherex and kurosawa. ;)
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by sonickteam4:
I'm just sayin
There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? [/b]
such as being a coldplay fan?
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Originally posted by Mr Dodgy Slapper:
Originally posted by novadancer:
this thread isn't worth a coldplay fan's response that's why... :mad:
Don't feel bad, someone's got to like bad music! I swear it was me that said "the masses are asses." [/b]
as Morrissey said, "it takes strength to be gentle and kind".
maybe you can take his words to heart and stop being an ass!
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Originally posted by sonickteam4:
such as being a coldplay fan?
I'm listening to Gretchen Wilson's "Here for the Party." Being a Coldplay fan is the least of my many shortcomings....
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Ever notice how touchy Coldshite fans can be? Like Chris Martin, you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. And also like Chris Martin, you need to get over yourself. :p
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Loved Parachutes. Enjoyed the last one. Enjoyed the show at 9:30 in 2002. I want to continue like Coldplay still but for some reason they seem like they've become the band equivalent of Destiny's Child. Chris Martin earnestly singing Coldplay's latest "most important song" feels like it occupies the same space as Beyonce and her girls. Well executed empty uplifting "entertainment" for the good people of the world. Um . . . anyone else feel this way??