Coldplay Sucks. Fuck Coldplay.
by Kathleen
My relationship with Coldplay started like most of my musical relationships that started before the age of 15 — through the radio. I was 9 and I heard an interesting piano melody followed by some indiscernible lyrics. I was intrigued. Soon I learned this was the band that sang the song about stars being yellow (groundbreaking). Even at seven years old, hearing “Yellow” for the first time, I thought it was dumb. The stars never once looked yellow and I was a little concerned he offered to die by exsanguination for this relationship.
Regardless, I heard “Clocks” and thought, “Hey, that’s a cool piano and the lyrics are a little less overtly ridiculous. Let’s give them another shot.” After about 2 months of hearing “Clocks” play on Y100 (R.I.P.) at what seemed to be the top of every hour, though, I was exhausted. The piano that had initially drawn me in now rolled around unceasingly in my head and the “oooOOOOOOoooo, oh” line (which I learned later was Chris Martin singing “you are” but not enunciating a single syllable properly) followed me around at all times. Coldplay had begun to haunt me.
Three years later, I was older and somewhat wiser (I was 12) and Coldplay had just released X&Y. My sister bought the CD and we shared a room at the time so again, I was exposed to Chris Martin. I won’t lie, X&Y was good. It has some songs I’ll find myself humming along to still today. Was it annoying they put the album on 2 discs even though it only had 13 songs? Yes, but this was Coldplay, so if they put out a decent album, they had to piss me off somewhere. I won’t make up reasons to hate this album, though. Songs like “What If” resonated with me at the time because I was in middle school and not 28, which Chris Martin was at the time of its release. That was as good as it would get, though.
Viva La Vida was where things began to spiral quickly. Like most doomed relationships, the one between this album and me started with a pivot point where I thought things would change for the better: when I first saw the album’s title track performed on the 2008 MTV Movie Awards. In retrospect, I have no idea why I thought this would portend good things, but without making excuses, I’ll that admit for a fleeting moment, I did.
I even bought the album, with money, even though I might still have had access to Limewire at that time. Listening to the rest of the album broke whatever trance I was in after the MTV Awards. It was unlistenable garbage. “Lovers in Japan” was ok I guess, but the rest was skippable, unmemorable junk. Like my hate for Hotel California (which will have to be explained later), each opening chord began to fill me with anger and hatred.
It’s impossible to discuss Coldplay without mentioning that, until this point and beyond, these songs were apparently written about Gwyneth Paltrow. When Martin is singing about a perfect day on a strawberry swing, he’s singing about a woman who tells other women to carry jade eggs in their vaginas, chooses to live off of food stamps from time to time to prove she “gets it,” and named her first daughter Apple knowing full well her last name is one letter off from Martini. This fact can’t help but add a sinister underlying vibration to even the best of their songs.
All this considered, I decided once and for all that Coldplay was trash.
Then, to add injury to insult, with this resentment already instilled, a Coldplay song literally soundtracked the first time someone broke up with me. I was a junior in college who thought it would be a good idea to start dating an athlete who was about to enter into his last season and then graduate. Unsurprisingly, I was wrong about this; after one too many arguments, I finally received the “I think we should talk” text. When the inevitable conversation went down, he inexplicably put on Parachutes; I was a little preoccupied by the whole “ending relationship” thing to care until there was an awkward silence. All of a sudden that fucker Chris Martin sang, “I never meant to cause you trouble/And I never meant to do you wrong” which was followed by my now ex-boyfriend saying, with a faux-profundity only accessible to emotionally stunted young men, “That’s exactly how I feel right now.”
At that moment, a fiery anger I’d never felt before rose within me. Not toward the person who had just awkwardly broken up with me, but toward Chris Martin himself. He had already cheapened whatever artistry they had in their early albums to become a Top 40 regular, but now his once-revered lyrics were being used as an explanation at the end of an already shitty relationship.
To be honest, I can’t speak intelligently to Mylo Xyloto (really, what is that title?) or Ghost Stories (I was just made aware this album existed) or A Head Full of Dreams (unfortunately, I knew about this one) because in my opinion, the band makes duplicitous music designed to be played on the radio and enjoyed by 13 year olds or sad adults who still read the messages written in their high school yearbook to feel validation. On occasion, I’m exposed to Coldplay unwillingly. It’s a terrible feeling, but through practice, I’ve learned to internalize my disgust, which allows me to continue functioning when they do something (like releasing a song with The Chainsmokers) that thrusts them back into the cultural conversation.
Personal experiences aside, Coldplay is a band that will likely be widely regarded as good, maybe even great, by future generations who lack the nuanced view earned by living through their rise and fall, but when you look at their catalog closely enough, you’ll see the shallow emotional exploitation within their lyrics, the gimmickry in their attempts to stay relevant, and the overall underwhelming musicianship in the music itself.
Coldplay, upon closer inspection, will turn out to be trash.
You can follow Kathleen and get her thoughts on bands that are actually good and not bad on Twitter @kathleenhayn
