Adding Up Coldplay's 'X&Y'

Buzz preceding the arrival of Coldplay’s latest album, X&Y, hinted that the savior of the “slumping” music industry was soon to arrive.

MSN lauded the CD as “perhaps the most hotly anticipated album of the year.” USA Today expects it to push the band “to stratospheric heights.” Anticipation has been so high, in fact, that when the project’s due date was postponed earlier this year, EMI’s stock plummeted an estimated $615 million.

“It’s like waiting for exam results,” front man Chris Martin said of the weight on the band’s shoulders. But he’s quick to counter: “Record sales don’t really mean anything. For us, the pressure is imagining some 15-year-old kid in Cincinnati who buys our album and doesn’t feel like he wasted his pocket money.”

Rest easy, Chris. Not only is your album not a waste of that kid’s allowance, it’s actually pretty good for him too—a rarity for a top-selling act nowadays.

A Head for Tech
Success is nothing new for Coldplay. After four Grammys and only two albums, the band has sold more than 17 million CDs. What’s the secret? Part of it is that these English imports have remained on the cutting edge of blending music and tech-savvy marketing. I was first introduced to the band in 1999 (about a year before its worldwide explosion) through a friend’s suggestion to check out a droopy tune called “Yellow” on mp3.com. Back then, the Web site was an online haven for the best and worst music you’d never hear anywhere else.

That didn’t last long. “Yellow” went on to blitz pop culture worldwide while marrying the band’s commercial-friendly sound to every medium available. Since 2001, Coldplay has been nearly ubiquitous on TV shows, movies, ads ... you name it, these guys have been heard on it. This time around, they released X&Y’s first single as a cell phone ringtone before it hit radio. In England, they’re promoting the album via new Bluetooth technology, which beams video clips, screensavers, photographs and tracks from the CD to mobile phones from giant advertising screens. Talk about getting your Coldplay fix.

Taking Hits for Making Them
Not everyone has jumped on the band’s bandwagon, of course. Critics knock the group for everything from Martin’s self-effacing front man persona to formulaic songs. “They don’t have the sonic heft of a major band,” said Jim Farber of the New York Daily News. “It seems like a little folk group that got out of control.” And after commenting that the band’s oft-aching lyrics “make me wish I didn’t understand English,” New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles labeled Coldplay as “the most insufferable band of the decade.”

If Martin & Co. are “insufferable,” what are crude mega-acts such as 50 Cent, The Game, Eminem or even rock multimillion-sellers Mudvayne and System of a Down? The truth is, X&Y offers music with a hopeful message that consistently skirts problematic content issues.

“What If?” surmises that even in the thick of a difficult relational breakup, “Darkness always turns into light.” That sentiment is echoed on the powerful, swelling refrain of “Fix You,” which adds that in the midst of sadness, suffering and pain, “Lights will guide you home/And ignite your bones/And I will try to fix you.” On “White Shadows” hope arrives “in the new sun rising” as someone breaks through a season of life. Hidden track “Till Kingdom Come” speaks of a possible higher being who will “come and set me free” from “what I’ve become.”

Indeed, encouragement is woven throughout the album. A friend lends a listening ear on “Talk.” Martin declares a loved one’s worth on “Low” (“The sky could fall on me/The parting of the seas/But you mean more to me/Than any color I can see”). “A Message” reminds each listener that “You don’t have to be on your own.”

Adding Up X + Y
Sure, Coldplay’s lyrics can be murky at times, given their tendency to present more questions than answers. “In mathematics X and Y were always the answers, but in life no one knows,” Martin explained of the CD’s title. “To me the album is about those unanswerable questions, and what you should do about the fact that you can’t explain all the unknown variables.”

But one thing is certain: Coldplay is now among rock’s elite, in both visibility and substance. I’m not quite ready to label the Brit boys “the next U2” or say they’ll single-handedly save rock ’n’ roll. Still, I’m sincerely glad that four guys who keep pure artistry as part of their equation are receiving this kind of attention.