Some of that mud was flung by Radiohead themselves. “Coldplay fake love as frenetically as the Ford f**king Motor Company manufactures Mustangs.” “Coldplay absolutely the s*******t f***ing band I’ve ever heard in my entire f***ing life,” wrote Chuck Klosterman in his 2003 essay anthology Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.
Coldplay song arms trial#
Then there is the apocryphal story – never confirmed – that when Thom Yorke first heard “Yellow”, he shook his head and said aloud, “What have I done?” Another tale has it that Yorke stopped talking to Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich (a member of The Smile) after Godrich produced proto-Coldplay mewlers Travis.Įnjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Be honest – which would you rather listen to? Coldplay working with the writer of “…Baby One More Time”? Or Thom Yorke and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood playing jazz-inflected krautrock in an outhouse (as they appeared to be doing during their Worthy Farm showcase)? Why even speak of these two bands in the same breath? The answer is that Coldplay, when breaking through in 2000 with the single “Yellow” and the album Parachutes, were compared unceasingly to Radiohead – the consensus being that Martin was a sort of Tesco Finest Thom Yorke, who’d listened to “High and Dry” several hundred times too many. The lesson is that, if pop is a marathon rather than a sprint, then it’s the uncool kids who often fare better over the distance. If they aren’t there already, Yorke’s crew are surely in danger of becoming heritage rockers of choice for avant-garde dads. On 5 November, they put out a 21st anniversary special edition of their landmark Kid A and Amnesiac records, featuring the standard studio outtakes and hard-to-source B-sides. Radiohead are, in other words, raiding the vault for a statement-vinyl cash-in – even as Coldplay push on with their second LP in three years.
Yet whereas Coldplay are charging into the future with Music of the Spheres, Radiohead are glancing over their shoulders. Just like Coldplay, they’ve been keeping busy.
And if that feels every bit as outrageously over the top as a mash-up between two of the biggest acts on the planet should, with 95.4 million streams and counting, it’s certainly found its audience. Released on 24 September, “My Universe” is a collaboration with Seoul boyband BTS. Even Kid A fanatics with the lyrics to “How to Disappear Completely” tattooed down their arm will have felt underwhelmed.Ĭontrast the lack of enthusiasm around yet another Radiohead’s spin-off – at this point it feels even their side-projects have side-projects – with the excitement surrounding the new single from Coldplay, Thom Yorke and company’s one-time anthemic rock peers and rivals. And then came the big reveal that the mystery headliners were… a jazz/krautrock Radiohead side-project named (presumably with irony) The Smile. Would it be Taylor Swift, treating the world to her first live deep dive into Folklore? Might Beyoncé return to the scene of her 2011 Pyramid Stage triumph? There were so many possibilities.
When it was announced that last summer’s Glastonbury Live At Worthy Farm virtual festival had booked a “special” guest act, the internet worked itself into quite a tizzy.