Coldplay

A heavy shroud of secrecy hung over Coldplay’s much-anticipated third album, with whispers coming that the band had found their inner Kraftwerk and were moving away from their spaciously lite stadium-rock. In a classic move of misdirection, the Brits actually went off and made an album that sounds exactly like you’d expect. Anyone waiting for a bold revelation or an embarrassing misstep is waiting on the wrong band.

There are only hints of new influences -- whiffs at what the band listened to during the in-between time (a roster that likely includes New Order and Interpol). X&Y reveals a band that is either too timid or too satisfied to stray from their enormously successful formula, although that doesn’t mean they are without ambition. They write material that seems designed to win over the largest audience possible, and they never tack on leftovers or filler. Almost every track gets the painstaking love too often afforded only to singles, and the hard work pays off: X&Y is an easy immersion from start to finish. It is, unabashedly, a very pretty and well-crafted album.

Unfortunately, it’s also a mediocrity. Nothing musters the urgency of “Clocks,” nothing bears the simple charms of “Don’t Panic.” Chris Martin sings his heart out -- too much so at times -- but beneath the tender piano and textured ambience lurks the lyrical nuance of Dave Matthews. There’s Chris “floating on a tidal wave” (the title track). There he is, in a different song, encouraging you to “climb a ladder up to the sun!” (“Talk”). His soul-searching questions about loneliness and unworthiness are written with the vague, all-encompassing gaze of motivational speakers and pharmaceutical advertisements, designed to make everyone feel like someone has pinpointed their problems and is ready to write them an escape ticket.

To his credit, though, Martin’s falsetto has become perhaps the most likeably familiar and enduring of all the voices in the easy-listening corner of the rock 'n' roll universe. He’s the Ray Romano of mainstream music; you may not watch or like the show, but you still recognize that it’s significantly better than a lot of its competition. In a world where even Keane has spawned Keane wannabes, Coldplay continues to be a crowd pleaser and a class act. The masses could do a lot worse. - Adam McKibbin

After Radiohead stubbornly refused to accept the mantle of "world's biggest and most important rock band" by releasing the willfully strange rocktronica fusion Kid A in 2000, Coldplay stepped up to the plate with their debut, Parachutes. Tasteful, earnest, introspective, anthemic, and grounded in guitars, the British quartet was everything Radiohead weren't but what the public wanted them to be, and benefited from the Oxford quintet's decision to abandon rock stardom for arcane art rock. Parachutes became a transatlantic hit and 2002's sequel, A Rush of Blood to the Head, consolidated their success by being bigger and better than Parachutes, positioning Coldplay to not be just the new Radiohead, but the new U2: a band that belongs to the world but fans believe that the music is for them alone. To that end, Coldplay's third album, X&Y -- slightly delayed so it follows Rush of Blood by nearly three years, but that's no longer than the time separating OK Computer and Kid A, or The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree -- is designed to be the record that elevates Coldplay to the major leagues, where they are at once the biggest and most important band in the world. It's deliberate and sleek, cinematic and pristine, hip enough to sample Kraftwerk and blend in fashionable retro-'80s post-punk allusions without altering the band's core. Indeed, X&Y is hardly a bold step forward, but rather a consolidation of Coldplay's strengths, particularly their skill at crafting surging, widescreen epics. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide