Indiecast - Let's Talk About Coldplay + Mitski's New Song, Plus: Pitchfork Re-Scores Itself

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

This week marked the long-awaited return of Mitski, who has been more or less quiet since the Be The Cowboy tour wrapped nearly two years ago. Now, the acclaimed songwriter is back with “Working For The Knife,” bringing with it the always-insane discourse around her music.The meat of this episode revolves around one of the biggest bands of the 21st century, Coldplay. With billions of streams on Spotify, Coldplay is almost a perfect poptimism-era rock band, in that they have no qualms with being a super pop band and doing whatever it takes to remain relevant (see: doing a song with BTS). After being nominated for Album Of The Year in 2019 with the double album Everyday Life, the band’s new Max Martin-produced album, Music Of The Spheres, is due out next week.In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is plugging Illusory Walls, the epic new album from emo legends The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. Meanwhile, Steve is enjoying Seventeen Going Under, the new album from English singer-songwriter Sam Fender.ou can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's indie mixtape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about one of the biggest bands of the 21st century Coldplay. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He was a 9.5, and now he's a 7.0. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

It's just like that Japanroid song. It's like, I used to be turned on the bright lights, and now I don't know. know Elpintore or something like that. I don't know, 7.0 is not that bad. I mean, if we're talking, I think that's the highest score Cole play's ever gotten at Pitchfork. Oh, yeah, a good, good way to integrate it into our topic this week.

Yeah, so. Seven pointo's good. The people on Twitter are right. It's like, no, it's not a C plus. It's like a B plus. It's three and a half stars. Like, look, I want to be someone seven point O for, you know, I want to be a 7.0 to somebody for, you know,

eternity rather than like a 9.5 that gets demoted. Well, okay, so we should fill in for people who don't know what we're talking about. Oh, come on. Who doesn't know what we're talking about? Who's listening to Indycast? There's the folks out there, some of the folks out there, they don't live online. They have jobs, they have live families. They might not be on top of every, you know, controversy that comes up.

That's why they listen to our show. They're catching up by listening to the show. Pitchfork ran a feature this week as part of their 25th anniversary. They've been rolling out a bunch of big retrospective features. And the one that got the most attention is that they revisited, I think, 19 reviews from the past or so. And they rescored them. So albums that were lauded in the past, some of them got demoted, whereas other albums that were slagged in the past, they were reassessed and given higher scores. And it's, I think, I think we could say that the inner pole, turn on the bright lights,

rescore was the most controversial, because in 2002, when that album came out, was given a 9.5. Album of the year in 2002 as well. It was the album of the year in 2002 for Pitchfork. And in this feature, it was decided that it actually deserves a 7.0. And look, I just want to say at the top

that I liked this feature. I thought it was a playful gesture on Pitchfork's fart. part, I, you know, I, I felt like it was them being irreverent with their own history. And, you know, I didn't take it all that seriously. I mean, it's not like they actually went into the review and crack the, you know, crack the glass and changed the score for all eternity. Um, so I, I, I just took it as kind of like a, like a laugh almost when I, when I saw it. Yeah. Poking the bear maybe a little bit, you know, trolling people a little bit, you know, which is, it's okay. To me, it was playful. but that Interpol rescuer, that really upset the 35 to 42 year old population in Indy Rock world.

Yeah, of which we are very much a part of. We're like the CNN of that constituency. So that's why we're covering this story immediately. Not just the breaking news, but the analysis afterwards. Yeah, look, I'm like all for the reassessment of, I guess, totems of the past. And I think that's kind of what this whole endeavor is really about, which is kind of giving itself some separation from its earlier years and like the kind of, you know, for lack of a better term, like white guy indie rock that was really what made pitchfork when it was in her poll being kind of emblem. of all that. And yeah, it is kind of a ridiculous album.

I think, though, that like... I think it still deserves a night full of life. I'm going to say that for the record. I think it's a great record. It's fucking amazing. And you know what? If it was, say, Boney Vair, Boni Vair that got demoted, I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. It's not the actual

act of demoting. It's just, like, what they chose. And you know what? I'm pretty happy that, say, source tags and codes didn't get that same treatment. Or, I mean, I can think of a... Or more importantly, I'm just glad that none of the stuff I wrote got...

Like, I just got to, like, give my sincerest thanks that people really had my back when it came to, like, childish Gambino and Kid Cuddy. Well, my good friend Rob Mitchum was targeted by this feature because he famously wrote a review of Sky Blue Sky by Wilco where he used the term, Dad Rock in that review. That invented Dad Rock, right?

Well, that term already existed. It originates in the British press from the mid-90s, which you can read about this in my book, Twilight of the Gods, by the way. I have a chapter on this. But at any rate, they raised that score from a 5.2 to an 8.5, which I'm personally happy with. Like, a core of my relationship with Rob is just arguing about that review because I love that record and he doesn't like that record. So yeah, he got targeted by that But he took it in stride He had a good sense of humor about it

The source tags and codes I forgot about that Because that obviously got a 10 Back in 2000 Was that 2002? That seems like that would have been an easy target I'm glad that they didn't take that down either Because I would still give that

If not a 10 A high line I think that's an amazing Like you said before You know some of our listeners have jobs They have like things to do They're not, like, I also have a job and I have things to do, but believe you me, if, like, source, if you touch storage tax and codes, I will make it the purpose of my day to just be online and tell you how angry I am about that. Look, I have to say, like, the, like, the most weirdly upsetting thing for me was that they lowered the FOXygen score. Of all bans.

I know, it's like, that record came out. I think that was 13. That was, that was definitely 13. Were the ambassadors of the 21st century, yada, yada, yada. If you can't remember that title, Steve, who can. Well, I talked about that album on this show, I think. Yeah, we did. Recently, and was that an Indycast Hall of Fame? It was something.

I don't know. That record holds up. I think it's a good record. It did seem a little random to take a shot at that album, just because, I mean, we talk about it on this show. I don't know how disgust it is, even though Jonathan Rado actually has a really good career right now as an indie rock producer. I think he's like one of the better people working in indie rock production right now. But, you know, I wanted to talk to you about this.

You know, again, I liked this feature. I thought it was fun and playful. And it's something I don't think that the site itself took that seriously. It was just kind of like a fun thing to do. But I do feel like at pitchfork among like the current staff, do you feel like there's like an ambivalence about the site's history? I don't want to say hostility towards the history, but like mixed feelings about what the early pitchfork was because I get that feeling sometimes when I look at the site. And in a way, I find it refreshing because it is like an anti-nistalgia point of view. that I think is positive because they always want to stay current and on top of what's happening in culture now.

But in some respects, it does seem like a little self-defeating to me because that is the most iconic period of the site. And like, pitchfork, I think is great now. I think they do a lot of things well. But, like, they're not going to matter as much as pitchfork did in the aughts. You know, that was their like Rolling Stone in the late 60s and early 70s, period. And it's not the fault of the site. It's just that social media comes in. There's just like a lot more voices.

No one site has the kind of, I think, power that pitchfork had in the indie world from, say, the Kid A review up through, say, like, Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for album of the year. Like, can we call that the pitchfork, you know, dominant era? And then after that, they become kind of like another just good music set. Yeah. I think that it. Of course, you know, for the Indycast listener, I'm going to use like a convoluted sports metaphor. But I think that, you know, when I came of age with it, 2000s, it was more like college football, like, you know, where it's a lot of the sites were more territorial and had different styles. And, of course, nobody got paid either.

But now it's more like, you know, the NFL where it's like 30 different variations on the same basic premise. And, you know, you just kind of follow laundry. in the sense that it's more about like what the, it's more about what the brand represents, I guess. And, you know, rather than like the individuals, or you just follow the individuals as a fantasy football sort of thing. It's like, you know, you care more about like what an individual person has to say more than like what the publication itself. There's not as much of an editorial voice, so to speak.

But I think what, you know, what this exercise, I guess it lacked for me is like I re-reviewed fevers and mirrors and I get wet, the latter of which famously got a point six from Ryan Shriver. And, you know, I thought like I was really, you know, writing the wrongs of history and so forth. But like, there was never a doubt in my mind that the person who originally wrote those reviews, like they really thought they were that bad, you know. it's very easy for me to like just look back at someone else who has a completely different view, completely different perspective and just say, nah, you were wrong about that. Here's what I thought all along. I really think what a interesting exercise would be to get 19 people to reassess reviews they wrote.

Like to look back on something that they wrote 10 years ago and say, no, this is actually like way better than I originally said. Or no, I got kind of fooled back then. and here's what I would do now. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I agree. I made a comment about something related to that on Twitter the other week, and I got in trouble because I referred to something I wrote in college about Beck. Oh, yeah. He was the best artist of the 90s, and I was like, that's one of the worst takes I've ever had.

And there were a lot of people who, you know, clap back at me, and they said, no, Beck is one of the best artists of the 90s. and I got which I think that's totally wrong even though I felt that when I was like 21 or whatever but yeah I mean I think you know there's always that temptation to feel that wherever we're at in the modern moment we've now progressed to the correct opinion so that if how we feel about something now is correct and how we felt in the past is wrong I don't know if that's necessarily true You know, I think it's worth questioning that a little bit and having the humility to say that at some point where we're at right now is going to be the past. And people are going to look back on us as being wrong, you know, 20 years from now.

I mean, maybe some of these records that have been rescored would be rescored again back to their original score that they were given at the time of release, you know? I think we just need to resist the temptation of feeling that like, well, now we're right. We're right 20 years later and we were wrong or this writer was wrong, you know, back then. I just don't think that's necessarily true. I think what this does, and I think it's similar to like Rolling Stone recently doing their 500 or however many best songs of all time sort of listed that. I think for the most part, publications are almost inherently not. There is no real such thing as an editorial voice or a publication voice. It is just a collection of people, particularly now, who probably also write for four or five other sites and probably won't be there in two years.

You know, that's no slight to any publication. It's just that's how things are. And that's kind of why I think of it more like the NFL where, you know, you're on the pet, like you're rooting for a guy on the Eagles and then all of a sudden, like two years later, he's on the Giants or something like that, where there are just people out there trying to make a buck. I don't know if there's any sort of like allegiance to a greater idea. You know, we could do it like, like I think the funniest out of all those, for that reason, was the Grimes re-review of Miss Anthropocene, which like they gave a best new music last year. It made the year endless last year. And now like less than a year later, it's like, no, maybe that wasn't that good at all. You know, it's probably just the result of, I don't know, maybe the people who like that album are gone and a new bunch of people are in now. And, you know, nothing's really changed except the individual tastes, you know, as opposed to like some dick tat and, you know, sent from down high about like this is what we believe now.

You know, two years from now, you'll believe something else. Yeah, I mean, and this goes back to my point about, you know, people at pitchfork now may be feeling ambivalent about, the site zone history, which I think is an interesting dynamic. I mean, you mentioned Rolling Stone, you know, and for all the shots that you could take at Jan Winter, you know, he was a connective thread at that place for the better part of 50 years. So you knew his biases. You knew like, okay, if a Mick Jagger solo record's coming out, it's going to get five stars, you know, to the point where you could make fun of it and caricature it. But it was a point of view. You know, it was something that you could

count on. And, you know, I think of Rolling Stone, they'll still do interviews, like, with Roger Daltrey when you get a solo tour or something. And you could say, like, well, who cares about Roger Daltry? But there is a connective thread to the Who being a formative act of Rolling Stone's early years. And you could say, well, it's almost like the Who's part of Rolling Stone's history.

So they're going to keep telling that story as they go forward. And again, I don't know. what the answer is, because again, I like this sort of revisionist attitude of younger generations being a reverend about what critics like 20 years ago. I think that can be healthy. But I also feel like, if

you're like a legacy publication, which is what pitchfork is now, if you slag the artist that you were associated with early on, aren't you also erasing your own history in a certain sense? And you're... But I think that's kind of the point.

Yeah, but I just wonder if that becomes self-defeating. Because it's also the moment in history that gives them the most cachet. Yeah, it's, you know, so I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Yeah, it's like that that's kind of the paradox where that past is in a lot of ways its most valuable asset. And, you know, perhaps in the future, you know, it can be continued to be played upon.

But I don't know, man, maybe like 20 years from that we're doing Indycast, you know, your Roger Daltry thing is like, you know, ice age or something like that, like 20 years from that ice age, you know what? It's 2041, and I really think they're going to level up on their 15th album. I think this is the one for them. Yep. Still making fun of St. Vincent album cycles. Yeah, oh, man.

And 2041, it'll be beautiful. Do we want to talk quick about the new Mitzki single? Yeah, you want to talk discourse, man. Like, what are the, like, the eternal truth of Twitter is, like, any time it feels like a bad Twitter day, just like, hold on because something will replace that in like eight hours. And like, thank God Mitzke came around to, you know, to put a completely different sort of insane discourse on the map, you know? Well, okay, so the song is called Working for the Knife, I feel like. Again, for the folks at home that have not kept up with everything this week, I think it's a pretty good song. I liked it.

Kind of like a Kate Bush vibe to it a little bit, which is the direction that Mitzki seems to be slowly moving toward after starting out in more of like an emo pop punk type realm on her earlier records. But yeah, Mitzki, there's something about her where she has that, she's not as popular as Lanna Del Rey, but she seems to attract the same type of intensity of follower, Like people who are like, Mitzky, run me over with a dump. Type of fans.

And it seemed like for a while that it had freaked her out to the point where it was like, oh, is Mitzky going to ever make another record? Because just the intensity around her, again, she's not a huge star, but like in this small pond of indie rock, you know, she is this huge force, a big cult of personality. I think Lannadale-Rae does have like kind of a healthy distaste. from her on, like her on record musical persona to, you know, to, like, I think that that the intensity that people relate to that person isn't quite as strong because I think everyone can kind of understand that that's a character. Whereas with Mitzky, and I think this is something that's

come up, like, with an alarming frequency where the word parasocial gets thrown around where no matter what is happening on record or like Mitzki has like said outright like please don't use this song as emblematic of an entire group of people whether it's you know Asians or like women or whatever but like people end up doing it anyway and yeah and there was and there was that thing with Mac DeMarco oh yes oh my god what a two thousand I really wish Indycast was around for that that would have been amazing that is one of the like big regrets that we weren't around at that point. But people just felt compelled to, like,

White Knight on Mitzky's behalf that, like, Mac DeMarco had created this, he had committed this terrible sin, you know, against Mitzki and people had to defend Mitzky, but then it also becomes, it's so intense that it becomes a burden for the person you're defending. And, yeah, people put so much,

they project so much under her, that she doesn't, seem to be asking. No, as a matter of fact, she, like, actively tries to say, like, please don't do that. And I, this is true with, like, any sort of stand culture. I mean, like, you even saw that, like, a month or so ago with the Foxing Review. Like, the band had to be like, yo, please don't defend us in the way that you feel emotionally driven to defend us. And I think that's more present nowadays with, you know, the stars of indie rock largely being, you know, so. solo artists, you know, like your Phoebe Bridgers or snail mail or, you know, Japanese

breakfast, like, or Julian Baker. I mean, I think you mentioned in your interview with Julian Baker that, you know, she kind of, she felt like this weird sort of burden to be the person her fans think her to be at all times. Yeah. It's funny with social media because I feel like there's some degree of irony when people are using this very bombastic language to describe their love of a certain musician. Again, I made a joke about this a little bit earlier, but when people are like, I want Mitzky to cut me in half with a chainsaw.

You know, I want to be run over by a tow truck driven by Mitzki. There's a little bit of irony to it, but because it's social media and it can strip context out so easily, it kind of becomes true. Like, and the bomb bass builds on bombast and mania feeds mania. And it just becomes this crazy, like, rat king situation. All these like tails tied together and it becomes like a monster of emotion existing on these sites. So anyway. What we just need to do is go back to the good old days of anonymous bands with like five people in them.

So we can just kind of spread our like insanity to more than one person. It's too much for one person to bear That's another good reference to our topic today Coldplay because I feel like they're a band I wish we had like live call in So we can like ask the other people Like ask our listeners that they can name another person in Cole Play Besides Chris Martin

Yeah well I can say This guy Barry Will champion Because that's a great fucking name And is it Johnny Buckle? Yeah that sounds about right But I was just thinking like like like Like, you know, because, you know, spoiler alert, we're both, we both like Coldplay. We've listened to them since their first record.

But like, if Guy Barryman walked up to you with a name tag that said, my name is Guy Barryman, like, would you recognize him? I don't think, dude, I love your work in Snow Patrol. I mean. It's like, yeah, you're a middle-aged British guy with a nice haircut, so I assume that you're in either Coldplay or Muse or, you know, Travis. I don't know exactly, though. I wouldn't be able to figure it out.

I could narrow it down enough, but I don't think I could identify him. All right, it's now time for our mailbag segment, and thank you all again for writing in. If you want to hit us up, we're at Indycastmailbag at gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter at Indycast 1. Also going to make a request, if you like our show, could you give us a review, please, on wherever you get your iPads, iPads, or iPads, your podcasts. or iPads. Yeah, and if you gave us like three or four stars, like back in the day,

now's the time to re-review, you know, in the spirit of the season. Yes, that's true. So this question comes from Ben and Cincinnati, not John from Cincinnati, unfortunately. Do you want to read this one? Yeah, let's read this one. I love the fact that you're allowing me to read them these days, man. Well, you know, I'm trying to be a good partner. Yeah, this is like the Robbie Goo Goo Goo Goo Goo Dog.

The one song in the Goo Goo Goo Goo Dolls album where the bass. this sings. Okay, so this is one, so Ben from Cincinnati says, I was scrolling through Pitchfork's most, most important artists of the past 25 years list, an idea conspicuously close to the Indycast Hall of Fame. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for recognizing that. And I couldn't help but notice they ordered artists alphabetically by first name, then last name. As someone who has an off-on relationship to CD collecting, I was caught off guard. And as someone who came to indie music through Pitchfork reviews over the last decade, I found myself angry at this then, the boxing score.

You know, that, yes. I understand iTunes, Apple Music has always ordered it in this way, but I have yet to come across a record store that has done this. This is a trend in optimism, and I'm simply naive. Record stores, in my experience, always order alphabetically

by last name, then first. So, does that mean, is Kendrick Lamar under KRL? Does Sufion Stevens go before or after the strokes? Fiona, now that involves a whole other list of questions, but I hope you get my conundrums. Again, thanks for the pod, and glad to see Los Campesinos make the list.

This is a super in the weeds question about alphabetizing. And I think it's funny that despite the foxing shoutout, I think this is more to you because you are a cassette CD guy and you still have to consider this. Yeah, you know, and I didn't notice that on the pitchfork list, which by the way, going back to what we were talking about before with pitchfork reconsidering their history, Think of some of the people that aren't on that list. Kurt Vile, Titus and Dronicus, washed out. I made a joke about how clap your hands say, yeah, should be on that list.

They absolutely should. So should black kids and jet. I mean, in terms of, like, because that list was about pitchfork's history. Yeah. And, you know, these are artists that, you know, I don't know how the site feels about them now, but certainly important to their history, more so than, say, Usher. for instance, who I think is on the list. And no shot at Usher. Usher's made records I enjoy.

But Usher is not, does not have any meaningful relationship with Pitchfork as a site. I mean, I guess they've covered his records, but is anyone who, like, loves Usher, do they think in terms of, like, the pitchfork reviews of his records? Maybe they do. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's, like, there's an alternate universe indie cast that, like, we'll just talk about Usher, even when he's not on an album cycle. That just seems like an example.

though, again, of people at the site now looking at the history and being like, well, yeah, this might have been important to the history, but it's important to us now, so we're going to cut this out. Anyway, that point aside, I'm with the listener here, with Ben and Cincinnati, and this is maybe a generational thing that I hadn't really noticed, that alphabetizing by the last name is a record store conceit. It's something I was raised with. I feel like that also exists in libraries and, you know, video stores and bookstores or wherever.

It's usually by the last name of the author, not the first name. But I guess streaming platforms have rejiggered this and now we're just following suit on music websites? Maybe. I mean, God, like, I do miss the alphabetizing and, like, you know, fretting. over, you know, like, well, wait, like, usually how I would do it is that if it's their real name, last name first. So Kendrick Lamar would be under L. Little Wayne is not quite a real name, so it's under L as well. And also, if, like, you have an assumed name like Boni Vair, that's under

B, even though that sounds like a dude's name and it's one dude. But, yeah, yeah, Little Wayne is basically, it's like a band name. Yes. You know, so, like, you wouldn't alphabetize the strokes with the. Or would you? Or would you? Yeah, I don't know. Is that what sites do? No, I would not.

And then the, the, the, you just have to throw that out of your collection entirely because it's just like a 404 error. Yeah. I don't know. But, Ben, I have to be honest, I didn't notice this. And I don't have a strong opinion on it. But if you're going to ask me my opinion, I'm with you. I'm with the old school record store way of alphabetizing it.

But, you know, maybe this is another. way of life that is now fading away. Now we're going to have a new way of doing things and we're all going to have to adjust. I don't know. But nowadays, like, given the fact that I listen to, like, all my music on, like, a phone and mostly at the gym, like, I need to, like, be able to find stuff as quickly as possible. So maybe this current way of doing things, it's like, okay, I want to listen to Boney Bear. It's like, I got to find, I'm just going to go straight to be it.

Like, reduces the search by, like, point zero. zero zero two seconds, which, you know, if like you're running or you're in your car, it means everything. So maybe this is, maybe this is the way to go. It's like it read my mind and it's trying to keep me safe. Rather than like, I can't like, you know, thumb through or dig through the crates, you know, on my iPhone the same way I could like back when I had that CD logic binder. Yeah. So I think what we're saying is we trust our tech overlords. Yeah. Don't question them. Never. Just go along with whatever they do because they have our best interest at heart. That's what's got an Indycast where it is.

All right, well, let's get to the meat of our episode. Yes. We're going to be talking about a little band called Coldplay. And we're talking about them because they have a new album out next week. It's called Music of the Spears, which is a great title. I love saying that out loud. Music of the Spheres. Neither one of us have heard this record, so we're not going to be reviewing the album.

We're going to be doing a deep dive into Cold Place career. But just a little bit of background on music of the spheres. It's produced by Max Martin, who is associated with some of the biggest pop songs of the last 25 years. He co-wrote since you've been gone for Kelly Clarkson. I want it that way with the Backstreet Boys. Just tons of... Boy band, teen pop, just classic. Is Cole played the first act to work with Max Martin and Brian Eno in their career?

I don't know. Didn't the Backstreet Boys try to make like an Ambien album back in like 2000 that was shelved? I mean. The Berlin Trilogy by the Backstreet Boys? Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to like just like completely like make this false Backstreet Boys ambient album and say like, oh, you know, the label jive.

They shelved it for being way too daring and have this be like complete like critical hit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's where the Backstreet Boys, they looked at the New Century and they said, you know, we made an album called Millennium, but now we're going to make a record that captures how the millennium feels. So we're going to get Brian, we're going to go to Berlin, work at Hansa Studios, bang out a masterpiece. The previous Coldplay record was everyday life that came out in 2019. It's a double record. It's a double record. it was nominated for album of the year at the Grammys, I don't remember this record at all. Can you recall, like, a single note of that record? Vaguely, I think there was like one song,

and I'm going to like really go out on a limb here, but it was about like this person in like the war-torn Middle East wishing they can go out and drink with their friends or something like that. Oh, wow. I think that was what it was about. But either way, it's like, I just had this sense of anxiety as you were talking about like Cole Place 2019. I'm like, God damn it, I don't remember what this album is called.

I had to Google it. I had to Google it. I don't remember that record. But, you know, it definitely exists. It definitely exists. And, you know, I can't remember if we talked about this on a previous episode or not, because we were, I was doing some sort of research that required me looking at Coldplay streaming numbers.

And it really is shocking, like, how popular this band still is. in 2021 and how if you look at the numbers it's hard for me to think of a rock band and i am calling cole play a rock band yeah they're a rock band i they're a rock band that even approaches their popularity i mean they have two songs that have streamed over a billion times on spotify uh something more than this which i guess that's technically is that technically a chris martin and chain smokers collab is yeah how how would we file this if we had like the cd single would have it if we had like the cd single would be like under Martin or Cole play or chain smokers

like Can you imagine buying the CD single of something more than this? I think that song is very much like a CD single type beat, you know? It's like that just seems like I don't recall buying too many

CD singles back in the day but that would be the one. Like there is something so very CD single about that and having the five remixes and the mono version and That's true That's true Well that has streamed over 1.6 billion times

The scientist from a rush of blood to the head 1.1 billion And then there's a bunch of songs that are close to a billion Like Viva LeVita has 945 million streams Fix You's at 859 Him for the weekend Which is a song This is like the era

That comes from the era of Coldplay Where I start to check out with them That has 766 million streams. I mean, this is like... Drake numbers. You know, like the weekend. Yeah, Drake numbers. I mean, just unbelievable. But looking at the arc of their career, like, what do you think their legacy is? I mean, because again, I said this earlier, you and I both like Coldplay. I would say at Oates era. I think I have a Coldplay playlist that I've made. I think they are like a really good pop rock band. And I think they've got like five records or so that I think are actually like quite good.

Do they pass that five album test? I think they do. Okay. Yeah, you're, I think you're right. Because if we start with parachutes and take that towards Milo, um, yeah, I think they, I mean, yeah, I'd say, I'd say they're there, but what's funny, because X and Y would be the album that a lot of people would say is the weak spot. And that's your favorite cold play record. It is my, it, I mean, this is like, like in light of like our talking about like the difference between like our Twitter lives and our real life's like defending X and Y is one of my favorite Twitter bits but it's also not at all a bit. I think that the, you know, the first half of that album, especially the run going from Fix You to Speed of Sound, that to me is like Colplay like reaching its zenith as far as like being an arena rock band.

I don't even think Colplay loves that record. I think that they, kind of had to downplay it, you know, in light of their reinvention on Viva LaVita. But, I mean, when I think about, like, what I actually listened to Colplay for, which is these big, vague, romantic arena, not Arena Rock, because that, Colplay's not a rock band that plays arenas, but they, they, they, I always think of them as that band from 2000 who basically started out. as a Travis rip-off band. And I'm like using that term literally.

I interviewed Travis in 2019. What a statement. I love that. I love Travis feeling like they were ripped off. Well, no, I think the Indycast people need to know this story. So I wrote about this at The Ringer. I interviewed Travis for the 20th anniversary of The Man Who. And Fran Healy would talk about how they would tour through England and he would always

see Chris Martin side stage, like studying them, like going single white female on what Travis was doing. And my favorite story from that whole piece is Fran Healy's saying that like this is 2000. They're like the biggest band in Britain and they see a cover of Q magazine.

And Fran's like I don't remember doing that cover story. But like you know, they're big enough to have a cover you know without doing an interview. And then he goes and approaches like oh fuck, that's Cole play. Right. And as crazy as this sounds like 20 years later, I mean, I think you're totally right.

That they were a band that at the beginning, it seemed like they were writing the coattails of Travis when they put out the Man Who, which came out in 99. Airshoots comes out in 2000. I mean, Travis's idea was basically to take the ballads from the bends and the ballads from What's the Story Morning Glory and fuse them together in this, like,

beautiful mid-tempo stew of, you know, epic balladry. and Coldplay took that idea and I just think that they did it better than Travis did and that's why they usurp them eventually or they just were able to do it over a longer period of time Well they just wanted it more I remember when Parachutes came out

that was one of my favorite albums of 2000 I thought that was a great record Don't panic obviously yellow is on that record shiver Yes Trouble it's a really nice record, but then a rush of blood to the head. Oh, yeah.

Comes out in 2003. 2002. And that really just blows them up. And then that's where they become the world conquering rock band. Yeah. I listened to Parachutes this morning, and it's almost like hilarious how obviously they're ripping off certain radio head songs. Like light speed, that is definitely subterranean homesick alien.

Trouble is lucky. Shiver is very like, you know, Ben's air. Yeah, it's them doing the radio head doing Jeff Buckley. Exactly. So it's like three degrees removed. Yeah, but with Rush of the Blood to the Head, I mean, that one right there is where it bears out that they were kind of a version of Travis or even radiohead that they just wanted it more. And so that album just takes everything about parachutes and make, like, I have to, I have to. I have to look back on that era and wonder, like, how I allowed myself to, like,

Coleplay, because when I hear it now, it's like these, I kind of knew the lyrics were embarrassing. I kind of knew that the sound was super derivative and that it wasn't actually saying anything. But, God, man, when I was, like, 22 years old and just, like, working a shitty job and, like, just going home and drinking and watching MTV 2, you watch, like, the video for In My Place, and that song just sounds really fucking profound. Yeah, and there was something about Coldplay that it was almost like they were responding to the market

because, you know, Radiohead, they make these two just beautiful, perfect guitar rock records in the late 90s, and then they decide to ditch that sound on Kid A in the year 2000, and then, look, here comes Coldplay the same year, saying, hey, you like that stuff, that radio head, you know, they don't do that anymore. Like, we're going to do it now. And so we're, like, we're, we're, we're servicing the market here. Uh, you know, there's, there's a gap.

It's almost like when the Beatles stopped being lovable mop tops in the 60s and they went psychedelic. So then the monkeys came along and they're like, okay, we're the, we're going to do what they used to do because we know people still like it. I think to me, that's what Cole was. And that's how I appreciate them in the same way I appreciate the monkeys. Like, the monkeys just have great pops. songs that you don't get tired of hearing. And there's not maybe the political element or the cultural, you know, sociopolitical, cultural impact that a band like the Beatles has, but it's just good pop music.

And you can enjoy it on a simple level. To me, that's what Coldplay has always been. But how do they go from that to being the biggest band of the 21st? Like, at what point do they become not just that, like, you know, the band that serves the need that radio had left off or even a band like along the lines of like say the killers or muse but like the biggest band of the 21st century because I you know the trajectory they've had is not straight it's not like they've gotten bigger and bigger with every album uh and here they I mean did the chain smokers era kind of save them in a way well you know I feel that with cold play I I've made this

comparison in the past that in a way I compared like those big cold play hits of the aughts to like the journey power ballads of the 80s like don't stop believing and faithfully and uh all these songs that are like you know

they live forever in karaoke bars and they also do extremely well in streaming platforms and it's the kind of music that people who don't read music criticism and aren't online all the time like it's the kind of music that I think a lot of people like that like where you don't have people online constantly telling you that this is lame. So it would never even occur to you to not enjoy it.

Because again, I think there's something about Coldplay where you hear a song and it just hits your emotional buttons. It does. Immediately, and you don't have to think about it. There's something kind of refreshing about that, I think, for a lot of people. You can like it instantly. It's not difficult. and it's good songs. It's produced well and it sounds,

you know, it moves people like a song like Fix You, I think. Oh God, don't even get me started. That legitimately, you know, that's an emotional song.

It is. It's so vague. And yet so, and it's like, I just think about the, I just think about hearing it, there was, I think in 2005,

some sort of like, some sort of like live aid sequel or something like that, and I think they played it there. And that's just, like, Colplay just wants to do that. They want to be, like, Bono without the politics or radio head without the art. And the wild thing is, that's what people, a lot of people really want, myself included. Yeah, I mean, I think that's why they go over so well, not just in arenas, but in stadiums. I mean, I think they play stadiums now.

Yeah. When you're in a stadium, big, broad gestures. Got to hit the cheap seats. they pay off. We're like nuance and specificity. It just gets lost in that kind of room. And I think you're right. I think Coldplay always wanted to be that kind of band

that is going to be playing stadiums. And that's why they work. I mean, they are a punching bag though now. I guess. Still, I mean, with critics, even in the era where it seems like every popular artist gets the benefit of the doubt from critics, where at least the idea that we're going to try to understand why this is popular and not just dismiss it out of hat. Coldplay feels like an exception to that.

They don't really get that kind of consideration a lot of times from critics. And I wonder if it does ultimately fall back on the idea that this is a band that doesn't have a narrative or really, they don't really stand for anything. No. They don't think they don't. You can't, like a rush of blood to the head, which again, I think is a really, really good record. I enjoy listening to it, but I would never say like, well, this represents the culture of the early arts. Maybe it does. Maybe it does. Like, you know, when you think about like the way people described the 2000s as being like a less politically engaged time or

they were just like kind of a salve, you know? Like in a sort of accidental way. Yeah. I'm with you on that. But, you know, I think. of someone like Harry Styles, for instance, who I think is doing something, I think he's playing a similar musical game to Coldplay, in that he's making pop music with a rock edge and playing it in arenas, like these big, you know, arms hoisting type, you know, songs. That's what he's doing. I think he does it not nearly as well as Coldplay. Like, I don't think he has a song that can approach yellow or clocks or the scientists. But he is a person, who will like wear dresses on stage and he'll wear like a feather boa.

And music writers can look at that and go, oh, he's challenging gender norms. And that somehow makes a song like watermelon's sugar seem more profound. Whereas like if Chris Martin were a dress on stage, I think people would immediately look at that and say, oh, he's just trend hopping. You know, they would immediately see through it because there is a sort of shallowness to him as a personality or, you know, no one's looking to him for cultural commentary. or like Maddie Healy in the 1975, not to start an argument here, but like, I mean, I think they're working in a similar vein to Coldplay, you could say, like in a broad sense, just in terms of just being like a big time pop rock band that, you know, they have some rock songs, they have some pop songs, they play big venues, but Maddie Healy, people look at him as, well, he's a profound voice

in talking about online culture. And if you listen to these records, you can understand where we're, at right now as a society, no one's doing that with cold play. They have none of that sort of pretentious baggage to their music for better or worse. Yeah, and I think that's kind of intentional. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think what the way I think about like Chris Martin is, uh, there's a great line from The Simpsons where like Bart like calls Millhouse a nerd or something like that. And Milhouse is like, I'm not a nerd, Bart. Nerds are smart. And, you know, that's kind of I think about like Chris Martin where he doesn't even he doesn't really even have like the juice to be

considered this kind of anti-cool cool or some like an outcast like he just seems like a normal ass dude who just wanted to be in a very popular band and you know he somehow managed it and yet somehow also he got he like did songs with Jay Z and Kanye West like how do you how did that happen well and also Frank Ocean oh yeah right right on his first record nostalgia ultra he samples strawberry swing no he covered strawberry swing yeah did he i mean did he do the same did he like have different lyrics over the music or did he just i think it was pretty much a straight up cover um yeah that's the thing and i mean adam levine also has that weird type of cred too yeah i mean the people that are the most hostile

the cold play are like also the people most like chris martin i think You know, like, well-to-do white people who are, like, very trend conscious and are online, they are probably the most likely to not like Coldplay. Yeah. Whereas I think, again, I think a lot of other kinds of people, people who don't follow, who aren't on social media maybe or who aren't following the music press, I think they take a lot of Coldplay songs at face value and just being like, yellow is a pretty song. Yes. The scientist is a beautiful ballad. You know, why wouldn't I like this? There's nothing about the aesthetics of those songs that turns people off,

which is probably what a lot of people don't like about Coldplay, that there is no edge to them. There's nothing subversive about them. But, yeah, I think a lot of people don't need that in their music. They just want really well-written, pretty songs that they can sing, you know, along with like 50,000 other people in a stadium. One feels fits all, man. Like, how, by the way, like, I think we need to, like, just point out, like, how excited are you for the new record?

Um, you know, I like that single, higher power. Okay. I thought the single was pretty good. Is that the one that rips off the weekend? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's the one. It sounds like blinding lights.

Got it. A bit, which, again, such a mercenary band. I mean, they, they, Chris Martin isn't afraid to do something completely obvious. Like, hey, let's do a song with BTS, you know, if he thinks it's going to get them a hit. You know, like, there's nothing that you could say to Chris Martin where he'd go, ah, no, that's a little embarrassing. I don't know if, you know, that works or I want to do something a little bit more subtle

than that or not as craven. You know, like there's no bone in his body that, you know, would prevent him from doing something he thought would be popular. Do you think that there's one in Guy Berryman or Will champion, like that they're, that their avant-garde leanings are being stifled. Well, and don't forget Johnny Bucklin. Oh, how can you forget Johnny Buckland? Get him in there.

I mean, those guys... That instrument he plays so well, whatever. No, I know he's the fucking guitar. It's come on. Is Champion the drummer? Champion's the drummer. I think he won some... Like, there was some study about the most accurate drummers or, like, the most, like, on-point.

And, like, I think he won it. Like, there was, like, a scientific study about, like, the most, you know, the most, like, technically proficient drummer as far as being on beat. It's Champion? Champion was the champion? I might just be making this shit up completely, but it's a cool thing to say. So Champion is like the new Neil Pert here, basically.

I guess. That's amazing. Yes. All right, we've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so if you are one of those people who don't have a job and don't have an outside life and just follow me on Twitter. You know it's going to be in this spot for me.

It's the new. The World is a Beautiful Place and I am no longer afraid to die record called Illusory Walls. It's their first album in four years, which is a huge cap of silence from them. After Always Foreign, they reconstituted the band, just took some time off. And this is really up there for one of my favorite records of the year. I was a little concerned about how they would soldier on after losing some really important members like Dylan who does Spirit Night and his incredible tweeter Tyler who's on thank you thank you another great artist but they've they focused on the lyrics the metal and just the Prague and have become this I don't know this this this this odd sort of hybrid of you know guitar center heroics but also

West Virginia poetry and they put together a record that just is about the usual things, which is triumphing over, you know, a crushing workload and politics. But the thing that is most notable about this record is that there's a 15-minute song at the end of the record called Infinite Josh, which is incredible.

And then there's another 20-minute song immediately after that called Few Were Afraid, which is almost even better. Like they've attached a 35-minute album-of-the-year candidate to a 40-minute album-of-the-year candidate, at eight. And I've just never seen that really in indie rock before where you do a 15 minute song and a 20

minute song, but of course I don't listen to the dead like Steve does. So maybe he's got more of a reference. See, they're sucking you into the jam world accidentally here. Yes. Because I like this record too. I have to say, I was surprised by how much it is just a straightforward Prague record in a lot of places

where it's like, man, isn't that dissimilar to me to like dream theater or tool in places. Like, it's not, like, a, it's not like a punk version of that. It's like a straightforward version of that. So, this is an album

that, like, if you're not in the emo world, usually, I think, or if you come more from like a metal or progressive point of view, this album, I think, could have, like, some crossover appeal into those worlds as well. But yeah, it's a really cool record. And I'm always a fan of,

long songs. Yeah. So I love that there's two tracks that are 35 minutes long. I'm also going to go with a very me pick in this slot. I want to talk about the 27-year-old English singer-songwriter Sam Fender. What a name. I know. I haven't dug deep in this.

I don't know if that's his real name or if it's like a Johnny guitar situation. You know, like I'm just going to have like a guitar sounding last name. No, real name, no gimmick. Samuel Thomas Fender. There you go. He was born to be a rock star. He actually is a rock star in England. I saw the other day that he's about to do a tour.

He's playing at Wembley Arena in England, so that speaks to how popular he's been over there. I believe that his debut album, which came out in 2019, called Hypersonic Missiles, was a number one record over there. Over here, though, he's still a cult artist, but I have to say that if you are on my side, of the Indycast divide in terms of like your aesthetic preferences, that Sam Fender is basically an amalgam of like a lot of things that I've liked in the past.

There is a Bruce Springsteen element to what he does. He's been compared to Bruce. That was a big narrative on hypersonic missiles. But it is more of like a war on drugs type take on Bruce Springsteen. I also hear elements of like the Gaslight Anthem and the killers and what he does. Basically this is like widescreen, you know, very catchy. anthems with very earnest lyrics. Sometimes cringy lyrics, there was a song on his first record called White Privilege,

which is self-explanatory as far as like why that would be cringy. But his new album is called 17 Going Under. It comes out today. And I think it's an improvement on the first record, which I did like. But similar to our Cold Place conversation, Sam Fender just writes really nice, melodic, beautiful, uplifting songs that hit your emotional buttons. Even when, if you step back, you could pick it apart for intellectual reasons. I don't delve too deeply into the lyrics on his albums.

I think they work better as broad statements. But again, if you like any of the artists I just mentioned, and you're looking for just uplifting, powerful, nice, heartlandy-type sounding rock, this is an album that I think you're really going to go for. So it's called 17 Going Under by Sam Fender. It's out today. And if you actually like Google image search him, he sort of looks like Owen Wilson trying to be Bruce Springsteen.

So I'm sure that doesn't hurt. But yeah, I think he's like kind of the, like, he's kind of the modern coal play in that. He's everything you say he is. But he also has this sense of like, oh, rock needs to be meaningful now. But he does so in a very blank way, which in a weird way I find to be very appealing.

Yeah, I mean, again, like, white privilege is definitely a song I skip on the first record. Yeah, I don't really think I need to know Sam Fender's views on white privilege. I can probably figure it out. Yeah. Let's just say he's against it, all right? He's not in favor of white privilege. But again, you know, sometimes I just want musical comfort food, and that's what this album is for me. It's not challenging in the least.

It's not going to redefine how I look at music. But in terms of just having really, again, melodic songs that hit me in the gut, it's sort of like a Pavlovian way, not an intellectual way, I think this record really works. So both of those records, I think, definitely check them out after listening to this episode. I think you'll enjoy them both. That is it for this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape newsletter.

You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.