YMMV / Coldplay

• Broken Base: One of the biggest regards fans who prefer the moody and melancholy sound of the first three albums and Ghost Stories, or the cheerier musical landscapes from Viva la Vida onwards. The individual albums also get it, as the below entry shows.
• Contested Sequel: After X&Y, it's hard to find a Coldplay album that doesn't suffer from this case.
  • Viva la Vida. While most loved it, there was a sizable minority who detested the "pretentious" direction and wanted a return to the old simple, poppy style.
  • Mylo Xyloto. Fans have either fallen in love with the new, colorful, poppier direction or lambasted Coldplay for "going mainstream".
  • Ditto for Ghost Stories, as the return to the moodier and sadder sound of the first three albums (or rather the sadness overdose due to the album reflecting Chris Martin's Creator Breakdown) was not universally welcome.
  • While less divisive than the previous album, A Head Full of Dreams still has this. One camp finds the album a nice remedy to the previous one, while the other side thinks the album is too colorful, even for the standards of the band that made Mylo Xyloto, and tries to overcompensate for the previous album. A third camp goes the extra mile, not having liked either this album or Ghost Stories, and claim Chris Martin has lost his tact for songwriting.
• Epileptic Trees: Chris Martin's character in the "Higher Power" music video is a Ridiculously Human Robot. It explains the lyrics alluding to electricity and the glitching in the music video.
• Even Better Sequel: A Rush of Blood to the Head in comparison to its predecessor Parachutes. Chris Martin himself considers it to be a Surprisingly Improved Sequel, as he does not look back very fondly on Parachutes.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: A sizable number of fans believe that "Viva la Vida" is actually about Louis XVI's infamously poor rulership and the subsequent French Revolution that deposed him and cost him his life, owing to the song's themes of revolution and Biblical Motifs.
• Epic Riff: Quite a few.
  • "Clocks", "Viva la Vida", "Talk", "Yellow", "The Scientist", and "Charlie Brown" (the latter even before its album was released!).
  • And "Violet Hill"!
  • "Life in Technicolor" has one of these, notable for being one of the few epic dulcimer riffs.
  • "Strawberry Swing" involves a melodic, enchanting guitar tune that complements the lyrics' melancholic yet romantic mood.
  • "Major Minus" from Mylo Xyloto delivers fierce, memorable riffs from Jonny's guitar over the course of the song, reminding us that we're still listening to Coldplay.
  • "Adventure of a Lifetime" intro riff, especially for how much of an earworm it is.
  • Just when you think "Up&Up" is going to be a slow tune, the guitar solo starts...
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Comparisons between Coldplay's fictional planet Kaotica and Lady Gaga's fictional planet Chromatica were made quickly, with Lady Gaga fans accusing Coldplay for plagiarizing Lady Gaga due to how similar the names and aesthetics are. Coldplay fans rebutted with the fact Coldplay had worked on the idea before Chromatica released and that the similarities weren't enough to accuse them of plagiarism.
  • There's also the rivalry with Mogwai of all bands after one of their members called Chris Martin a "fuckface" in the 2006 BRIT Awards.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The fanon draws its own lines. For fans of their more alt-rock area, they never released anything after A Rush of Blood to the Head. Some add X&Y and Viva la Vida to this list. Others hate their earlier work and claim their first album was Viva la Vida.
  • Or, for the most basic fan, their only songs are "Yellow", "Clocks", "Viva la Vida", and maybe "A Sky Full of Stars", "Adventure of a Lifetime" and "Hymn for the Weekend".
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: "Paradise" is this in Australia due to its use in promotion in relation to the show Revenge.
• Growing the Beard: Many critics and general music fans only started to like the band after Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, and in particular the release of the single "Violet Hill". More so with Mylo Xyloto!
• Ho Yay:
  • Chris and Jonny, again. Really.◊ Chris is totally checking Jonny out in this pic.◊
  • Hoo boy, there's actually quite a bit of this for Chris and Jonny. They're often in one another's personal space during shows and interviews, giving each other meaningful looks and kisses on the cheek (and occasionally, on the lips). They've been best friends since their first week of college and have a strong bond as a result of that. They often describe their first meeting/jam session together as being like "falling in love" and "love at first sight...in a musical way".
    • They even have a portmanteau ship name: Buckin (Buckland + Martin, obv). There are fanvids on Youtube compiling their shippy moments, as well as some fanfics in certain corners of the web.
    • This Mylo Xyloto-era Ellen interview has some real slashy gems, including Chris joking that Coldplay was formed because guys like him and Jonny weren't doing so well on the dating scene with women *or* men, and Jonny stating that the longest relationship that either he or Chris had ever had was with each other.
    • Chris wrote a love song for Jonny. No, really. The story behind "Green Eyes" off of A Rush of Blood to the Head was that it was written for two people, one of whom is Jonny.
    • Chris: "I used to sing about people and a lot of those people were boys. It’s just that, a love song addressed to your guitar player…It’s easier in interviews to say: “Oh yeah, it’s about a girl.” You know what I mean?"
    • Chris has even changed the lyrics during live performances to include Jonny's name - from "Honey you are a rock/upon which I stand" to "JONNY you are a rock/upon which I stand".
    • The way Chris and Jonny look at each other during the line "You've got, yeah, you've got a higher" in the "Higher Power" official audio video.
  • There's ho yay feels for the entire band, actually — the guys have said multiple times their relationship is "like a four-way marriage" or "like having four husbands".
  • Beginning with "Higher Power", the colors used for their 9th era can easily be seen as bisexual lighting. In the official audio video for the song, the circle on Jonny's shirt and the back of Chris' jacket resembles the bisexual flag, down to pink being on top. Couple that with the line "This boy is electric".
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: This band is one of the most unfortunate victims of this. The 40-Year-Old Virgin may be at least partly to blame.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: This was the main complaint critics had with X&Y: that the songs were too similar to those on the preceding A Rush of Blood to the Head. Of course, when the band decided to change up their style on the following album...
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Some fan's reaction to "Parachutes" off of Parachutes, considering the song is only 46 seconds long.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I used to roll the dice, feel my dick in my enemy's ass..." ^ExplanationA severely sentence-mixed version of the second verse and chorus to "Viva la Vida", usually played along a slideshow of relevant images with the lyrics.
  • The parts with the CGI animated monkeys dancing in their 2015 music video, Adventure of a Lifetime has been made into as gifs, in edited videos with different music to synchronize the dancing, and even on other primate themed memes through the 2010s.
• Narm: From a certain perspective, the video for "The Scientist" if viewed forwards. A man crashes a car, which accidentally kills his girlfriend... and then has fun in the forest and goes to bed. In the middle of a sidewalk. Even Chris says it's stupid.
• Narm Charm: Some fans feel that Coldplay's sentimentality, earnestness, and optimism is incredibly silly and uncool...and they like it that way.
• Nightmare Fuel: The video for "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" involves a businessman who is slowly disappearing. It first starts with his hands until the end of the video reveals he has disappeared completely leaving behind his suit.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • "Major Minus" off of Mylo Xyloto. Justified, since the titular character is pretty much Big Brother.
  • The song "Spies" is about a man who is extremely paranoid spies are watching everyone.
• Parody Displacement: In spite of the massive success "Viva la Vida" was, there exists a lot of Gen Zers who don't know the original song yet are familiar with its Minecraft themed parody "Fallen Kingdom" by CaptainSparklez.
• Refrain from Assuming:
  • "Adventure of a Lifetime" has commonly been referred to as "Turn Your Magic On" (a line used in the verses and bridge) as well as "Alive Again" (which is the main line of the chorus). The actual title is never said in the song.
  • "Viva la Vida" doesn't include its title in its lyrics either, or even particularly suit the vibe its title gives, but has several title-esque lines in it, such as "When I Ruled The World".
  • "The Scientist" also has a Non-Appearing Title, causing some people to think it's called one of the lines most emphasized in the lyrics, such as "Back to the Start", "Nobody Said It Was Easy", "Come Up to Meet You", etc. This was not aided when Evil Activities sampled "The Scientist" in a song and actually did call it "Nobody Said It Was Easy".
• Sampled Up:
  • The riff in "Talk" (you know the one) is adapted (with permission) from the riff of "Computer Love" by electronic band Kraftwerk.
  • Chris Martin has admitted that "Fix You" was inspired by the Elbow song "Grace Under Pressure".
• Seasonal Rot: As mentioned above, the stretch between Mylo Xyloto to A Head Full of Dreams is one where fans will have complaints on at least one album, if not all three, and gave fuel for the dissers who call Coldplay bland. This ended with Everyday Life, a more experimental album considered to be one of their best. Then the criticisms came right back with their next album Music of the Spheres which is primarily pop.
• Sequel Displacement: Their first album is not their most popular.
• Signature Song: "Clocks", "Viva la Vida", "Yellow", "The Scientist", "Speed of Sound", "Fix You", "Paradise", "Hymn for the Weekend" and "A Sky Full of Stars".
• Suspiciously Similar Song
  • The drums and main guitar lick of "In My Place" bear a rather striking resemblance to Ride's "Dreams Burn Down".
  • "Viva la Vida" alone got accused of plagiarizing multiple songs, including "If I Could Fly" by Joe Satriani, "Foreigner Suites" by Cat Stevens, "The Songs I Didn't Write" by Creaky Boards and, of all things, the invincibility music from Super Mario Bros.. That said, most of those songs are already considered to be a take off of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's "Se tu m'ami."
  • According to this YouTube video, they ripped off the Dark Cave theme from Pokémon Gold and Silver in the opening of "Clocks".
• Sweet Dreams Fuel:
  • "Sparks" is probably one of the softest songs they've ever done.
  • "Midnight" and "O" are full-on ambient pieces, with the latter having Chris' kids on lead vocals that are reverberated densely to give off the effect that they're ghosts.
  • "Fly On", a somber yet touching piano ballad.
  • "Don't Panic" is really sweet sounding.
  • "Strawberry Swing" has a reputation for being an infectiously happy and soothing song, and it's not just us talking; it's reportedly the fifth most relaxing song of all time.
  • "The Escapist", the ambient, uplifting finale of Viva la Vida.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Upon its release, Parachutes was compared unfavorably to Radiohead's The Bends, with "Yellow" in particular being accused of plagiarizing Radiohead's "Lift" (which wasn't included on a proper studio release until 2017, but had become a fan-favorite following live performances of it in the leadup to OK Computer), and non fans were quick to credit their popularity to the Hype Backlash to Radiohead's newer, more experimental sound rather than any merit Coldplay's album allegedly had on its own. The arena rock music they've been creating since then have similarly been called a poor man's U2.
• Tough Act to Follow: A Rush of Blood to the Head averted the Sophomore Slump, which probably helped X&Y get a middling reception. And in turn, the success of New Sound Albums Viva la Vida and Mylo Xyloto hurt the commercial performance and fan reception of the much less crowd-pleasing Ghost Stories.
• Vindicated by History:
  • For the longest time, X&Y was the black sheep of their discography, with critics and audiences alike dismissing it as more of the same, but with more U2 arena rock aping into it. In recent years, the reception for the album has warmed increasingly, with some fans even considering it one of Coldplay's best albums.
  • Zig-Zagged with Ghost Stories. While some still hold it in low par due to it being within the band's believed Audience-Alienating Era that began with Mylo Xyloto and (arguably) ended with Everyday Life, a majority have become to appreciate its heavy ambient soundscape. Some also do give it a pass due to it being written when Chris was having his Creator Breakdown with his divorce.
  • Ditto for Mylo Xyloto. While some fans still consider it the starting point of their Audience-Alienating Era, a lot of fans have come around on it, feeling that it is a solid album on its own right with some overlooked gems, and that a colourful pop album would be a hard sell for longtime fans of their earlier alternative sound.
• Vocal Dissonance: Will Champion usually isn't seen singing lead vocals. While his speaking voice is fairly normal, some might consider his singing voice surprisingly high and soft compared to his appearance. Here's a video of him singing "In My Place".
• Win Back the Crowd: Everyday Life is shaping up to be this for some fans, with its return to a more traditional alternative sound and a more ambitious and organic experimentation since Viva la Vida.

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