Having started an Oasis thread spurred on by the ticket shenanigans the other week, here's one on Coldplay for similar reasons as we've just had a kind of repeat performance of the heated debate about online queues, Ticketmaster's practices, etc. Someone asked, have TM not learned from the Oasis 'incident'? My view is that TM aren't in this business to learn things. The more pertinent question might be, did Coldplay fans not learn from the Oasis brouhaha. Because TM aren't going to change a thing they do while they know, as we all do, that devoted fans will always put up with the queueing and the prices.
More broadly on Coldplay, while I don't much listen to them I find them one of those bands with that curious thing going on that was summed up by a journalist in Sounds interviewing Alex Lifeson - the comment was about Rush but can be applied to Coldplay: "Hugely successful, yet apparently liked by no-one."
I thought they did some interesting, slightly edgy stuff on the first couple of albums when they had a 'cleaner' sound before it became bogged down with big dollops of "WOOOO-OH-AH-AAAAAHHHH". For me they hit their peak with their Viva La Vida album which has their strongest material (please let's not re-tread tedious discussions of its full title here). It was the one album of theirs Brian Eno produced, and I wondered if its satisfyingly different feel sprang from his working methods. In particular, as is his approach he initially observed their studio practices without interfering much. It quickly dawned on him that Chris Martin was dominating proceedings. He then barred CM from the studio for extended periods of time to let the other three flex their muscles more. Whether it was this that did it, but I think that album is their best by quite some distance. I love the back-to-back Yes and (the unlisted) Chinese Sleep Chant which are two of the most un-Coldplay-like tracks they've ever done.
After that they lapsed into the formula we're now very familiar with. Charlie Brown off the next album is good, I love the riff on that. But now they largely don't interest me.