Switched on Pop - Learning to love: Coldplay

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Coldplay is one of the biggest musical acts in the world, ranking #6 on Spotify and boasting one of the highest-grossing tours of all time. Yet, despite their global success, they've often been a critical punching bag. The New York Times once branded them “the most insufferable band of the decade.” The Independent described them as “pompous, mawkish, and unbearably smug.” But Coldplay has never claimed to be the hardest rock band—they’ve instead built a legacy on their softer sound and uplifting message. With the release of their 10th studio album, Moon Music, we dive deep into their catalog and ask the question: can we learn to love Coldplay? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a year on Mesh RORR Records Welcome to Switched on

Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Nate, when you hear the song,

how does it make you feel? I feel pretty emotional. What do you think of Coldplay is yellow? I think it's really moving. It's really simple. It's kind of haunting. It has a pretty iconic music video. And I think it's like a modern classic.

Do you like Coldplay? No. I mean, let me clarify, Charlie. Have I ever logged gone to Spotify or gone to a record store and deliberately looked for a Coldplay album. No. Do I cringe slightly at what I perceive as the overwhelming earnestness of this band? Sometimes.

But like, dislike, I don't know. I feel like I don't ultimately know enough to have an opinion about this group. Well, if you don't like Coldplay, you wouldn't be alone. They are one of the most wildly mocked bands in. the media. People like cold play and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people, Jeremy. But maybe I should go solo. I don't care. Jury duty sounds boring. I'm going to get myself kicked out. Just like I got kicked out of cold play. Guys, I got an idea. How about we do a song that's not whiny bull crap? Everyone like I speak for the peat. I'm a sensitive rock star.

Hearing these back to back, it's like, okay, this band is a little bit. bit of a punching bag. I'm going to say I did enjoy Coldplay, at least for the first three albums, and then I kind of fell off. So what I want to do today is invoke our learning to love series, where we examine seemingly mostly controversial white guy bands like The Killers in Oasis, and try to decide can we learn to love their music and what better time to do this with Coldplay then upon the release of their 10th studio album, Moon Music. Nate, I want to see if you and I can learn to love Coldplay together. Let's do it, Charlie.

I'm cautiously optimistic that this could possibly be a good idea. We'll find out. A lot of hedging and hawing. Okay, Coldplay are Chris Martin, Johnny Buckland, Guy Barryman, and Will Champion from London, England. They got their start in the late 90s with EP's safety and the blue room, but they really first popped off with their debut album Parachutes in 2000, featuring songs like Yellow that we just heard and Sparks.

This was a post-grunge, soft rock success. It went number one in the UK. It was certified nine times platinum, 22nd best-selling album of the 21st century, and it really launches the career of Coldplay, who, by the way, if Nate, you feel like, I don't know if I'm into Coldplay and all these other TV shows and movies say, I don't have to. Well, here's the deal. Over time, Coldplay have become the highest grossing touring act of all time. One of the most successful bands in history, they've sold more than 100 million albums. They've won more than 300 awards.

They're currently the number six biggest act on Spotify in the world. Wow. Those are like staggering statistics. Yeah, right? The bigger you are, the more people love to come for you. That's the thing. They are big. I sometimes thought about Coldplay as almost like an alt rock band, but they have massive singles that are known all around the world. Songs like The Scientist that's gone four times platinum and has over two billion Spotify streams. Their song, Viva La Vida won the Grammy Song of the Year Award, was a number one hit.

Gann has over two billion streams. They have had hits throughout their career, like in their second decade as a band, their song Paradise went three times platinum. Despite all of this success, they have seen a lot of criticism. In 2005, the New York Times called them the most insufferable band of the decade.

Dang. The independent in the same year called them pompous, mockish, and unbearably smug. And the Guardian, famously called them Bedwetter's music. That's just mean. Totally mean. I think another disingenuous route of criticism would be to go into the media narrative of the band.

Chris Martin was famously married to Gwyneth Peltro, major film star, goop entrepreneur. They then, quote, consciously uncoupled, unquote. He doesn't eat any food after 4 p.m., which he learned from Bruce Springsteen. Wait, what? I don't know. I saw an interview with him once, where he said that. Sorry, get out of this laacious gossip.

This is all just talk. Back to the music. Let's get into the music. You know, I want to point out that I think it's, they arrived at sort of a unique moment. And maybe their sound was a bit countercultural to what was happening in the late 90s, early 2000s. This is the era of new metal, think Lincoln Park. Nickelback butt rock. Fisty pop punk in the sounds of acts like Blink 182.

And paired back garage. rock and the sounds of the white stripes. You compare that to Coldplay's yellow. It's just kind of mellow. But the thing is, Colplay knows this. This is deliberate. When they accepted the 2009 Grammy Award for Rock Album of the Year, this is how they described their sound.

Thanks very much, everybody. We're not, of course, the heaviest of rock bands, as you may have noticed, but more of a sort of limestone kind of rock, you know? A little softer, but just as charming. Limestone rock. I feel like we might have found the title for this episode. I think it's a fair description of their music. It's a little light.

It's a little porous, a little airy. It's a little shiny, a little more beautiful. It never goes above like 122 BPM. It's pretty white. If by that you mean there's not a lot of like blues notes or syncopation or interlocking counter melodies, then yeah, that seems like a fair description. Also, limestone is, you know, fairly. white in color. I wouldn't know, Charlie.

I'm not a geologist. I'm not a scientist, okay? You grew up in New York City. Some of the buildings are limestone buildings. Some are brownstone buildings. You don't know this? I don't know this. Okay.

Well, now you know this. Whether hard rock or limestone rock, I think something that's very notable about Coldplay being one of the biggest acts in the world is there one of the very few, extremely extraordinary rare, going extinct bands. You know, just the other week. firebrand music YouTuber Rick Bejato pointed out. By 2010, it just made no sense to actually sign bands because it wasn't worth it. And that brings us to where we are today. If you go to the top 50 chart right now in the U.S., you have Sabrina Carpenter, you have Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars,

you have Jim and you have Chapel Roan, Billy Elish, Post Malone, Morgan Wallin, Shabuzzi, Kendrick Lamar, Tommy Richmond, Hosier, Zach Bryan, Casey Musgraves, Benson Boone, Teddy Swee, whims. It's just literally all solo artist. My longtime personal nemesis, Rick, is absolutely correct here. Not that he's the first person to point this out by any means. Yeah. This is a sort of a long developing phenomenon within the 21st century charts. Part of his argument is that it doesn't make financial sense to have a band. It's typically the main act who draws the most attention, especially on social media platforms where it's harder to market a whole band than it is to market an individual person who can go on and, you know, just put their face out there. And furthermore, that when you're

going to go and record something, why not just hire a drummer for that recording that you're going to do? You know, Cole play is different because as a band, they're extremely collaborative. Each member of the band sequentially contributes to pretty much every song. Often they begin with lead singer Chris Martin playing something, writing something. Then it will go maybe to the guitarist, Johnny Buckland, then to the bassist and guitarist, Guy Barryman, and then to the drummer, Will Champion. And they'll all have input in the creation of their music. I mean, that's very notable. And speaking of this group as a band, you know, when I go to Wikipedia for Coldplay, usually when you're looking at a band's page, there's the section that

says former members, right? There's no section here. It's just the four of them, and they've been together for almost 30 years. That's like really rare. They are currently in a major legal dispute with their longtime manager who they accuse of mismanaging money. But other than that, yeah, the musical act is all intact. And that is very strange, especially considering the length of this band. I want to get more into the actual sound. And I think we should start with their influences. I think some of the early criticism of the band was about maybe leaning too hard into some of their influences, like Radiohead. You can hear sort of the flavors of their album The Bens in a song like High and Dry in Coldplay's

Sparks. Guitar riffs of Coldplay's In My Place feel somewhat reminiscent of Radiohead's No Surprises. Many listeners have also noted the heavy influence of the band, U2. Chris Martin actually wrote an essay for Rolling Stone where he says that you two are one of the only bands where he knows their whole catalog by heart. You can especially hear the piercing lead rock guitars and the stadium rock energy of a song like where the streets have no name in Coldplay's shiver. But the sounds of Radiohead and U2, those weren't the big critical musical successes.

Like this is the era of new metal butt rock, all those other things that are going on. And so maybe these early influences, not only did they wear them on their sleeves a little bit, but they weren't on trend, if you will. So I'm definitely hearing these influences from Radiohead and you two. But Charlie, you said you're a fan of these early albums from Coldplay. What makes them sound like Coldplay and not like someone else? Like what, let's get deeper into that music. Great.

Let's just go into the catalog. Their albums divide roughly into three eras. And I am a fan of the first era. We'll begin there with their first album parachutes. And it really establishes this sort of moody, atmospheric, slow acoustic music. But we've already heard yellow and sparks, two of the biggest songs off of parachutes. And those both have this sort of slow tempo, a lot of acoustic guitar, a little bit of drums, electric guitar. Maybe we can explore some other music like the opening song, Don't Panic.

For me, this is the Cold Place sound from their very first song. off their first album release. It is this vaguely inspirational platitude with very atmospheric music. Even though we're dealing with a sort of rock band instrumentation, the guitars have these huge reverbs. They're kind of swirling all around you. And the songs are about love and looking for meaning.

It's a sound and a message that they continue on their second album, 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head, where the sonics get even bigger and more grandiose, yet that heartfelt message remains. You can hear it on a song like their hit, Clocks. Their sophomore album was not a slump. It was a massive hit. It was one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century

and received great critical acclaim. And so they really build upon this sound for their third album, X and Y, released in 2005. and it's the same big platitudes, but an even bigger sound on a song like Speed of Sound. You can hear there on Speed of Sound. We still have the same rock group orientation, drums, electric bass, that piercing electric guitar. But what we add, in addition to their regular piano, are these ethereal synthesizers that just take up the entire mix. It's like it's sending you out into the universe.

Charlie, it's wild. How many of these songs I know so well? But when you said their names, I was like, I don't know what that is. And then as soon as you hit play, I was like, oh, of course, that song. It's like, I'm realizing how deeply this band is in my consciousness, even without me totally knowing it. Oh, that's interesting. You know, I think it's part of actually what Coldplay wants because these first three albums really set them up as, you know, soft, alternative. kind of thing, but they are aiming for bigger success.

I think the inclusion of the synthesizer on X and Y and some strategic sample placements indicate that they're aiming for even larger acceptance. Take for example, the song Talk. I know you know this one, but I'm curious if you know what it's referencing. I got nothing. Do you know the Crout Rock band Kraftwerk? I am familiar. Yeah, very good.

How about their curious song, exploring? the digital world computer love. Let me hear that Coldplay again. Wow, there it is. Okay, not a sample, Charlie, an interpolation. True, not a sample, an interpolation. Thank you for keeping me honest.

But in 2005, Coleplay are reaching back to 1981 and saying, hey, we have this connection to a really influential, important, experimental, electronic rock band. So they're placing themselves in music history with this sample, and I think doing something, sorry, interpolation, and they are starting to embrace more of the writing styles and formats of pop music, which is where they go in their second era of albums.

Their second group of albums begins with Viva La Vida in 2008. Up until this point, they've been working primarily with their producer Ken Wilson, But now they decide to branch out, and they bring in the acclaimed producer, Brian Eno, into the team. He is a forefather of ambient and electronic music and made hit records with Bowie, U-2, Talking Heads, Paul Simon, a ton of others. And he works alongside producers Marcus Draves, Rick Simpson, and electronic artist John Hopkins to help realize a new sound for Coldplay. In life in Technicolor, they add the dulcimer in addition to more synthesizers. And then they start to bring in additional global influences like Flamenca claps on cemeteries of London. On their song Lost, they feature the West African hand drum, the Jembe.

But it's their title song, Viva La Vida, with its pumping four-to-the-floor kicks that take cold play into the stratosphere. The song is an absolute smash. Yeah. By embracing this more pop sound, more sampled kick drums, pumping synths and dulcimers, they find themselves as a major pop act. They are finding a cross-atlantic audience, soon to be a global audience. The tour for this album, Viva La Vida, brings in over $200 million and reaches $3 million ticket buyers. Wow. And I liked this album when it came out. I thought it was an interesting turn. I liked those. dulcimers. I thought they were sort of expanding their acoustic palette. Oh yeah. You're always going on about dulcimers. Yeah. Delsomer this, delcimer that. Well, I play the mandolin. You know, they kind of have that same plunky, plicky sound. So I think it's just like a, yeah, I'm inclined to enjoy that sound. Viva La Vida is at once a kind of undeniable song. Like, yeah, it's so anthemic. You can't, you kind of can't help to get caught up in it. And I do love

the lyrical detail of it. But I have an issue with, this line, Roman cavalry choirs are singing. What does that mean? Roman cavalry choirs. Like Roman cavalry, so that's, you know, the... On horse and carriage. On horseback, yeah. Yeah.

Then choirs, they're singing while they ride on horseback? I feel like that's the one image in these lyrics that gives me pause. I don't know. I feel like we need to talk to Roman historian. I understand that all men think about Rome, right? that's still happening. So I'm sure someone will correct us. This line is my Roman Empire.

This line in Coldplay, yeah. I imagine there were all kinds of war cries that were made during war, but you're getting way too into some unnecessary details here. Okay, let's get back to the narrative. You're a Coldplay fan, and then at this point, things start to shift a little bit. Yeah, the thing is they start to move into the world of pop, and what's happening in the world of pop this time is the rise of electronic dance music.

And so when they put out their fifth studio album, Milo Zyloto, I don't know how to say it properly, nobody does. They put out in 2011, you really start to hear the embrace of electronic dance music. It's their first album that is maybe less limestone rock. EDM's not the right word. It's not electronic dance music. It's more like electronic sway music in the same way that, you know, it's not hard rock. It's not super dance music. but it has this sort of pumping poppiness that EDM had.

You can hear it on Paradise, one of those hits that we heard earlier. We've left the soft rock world of Coldplay and entered this sort of arena pop era of Coldplay. Totally, yeah. There's a lot that's still there, though. Like you have Chris Martin's vocal. I actually really like Chris Martin's vocal. You know, it's very raw. There's not a lot of tuning on it.

He's not afraid to be a little pitchy in his falsetto. It's raw. It's exposed. but it's really beautiful in the way that he's willing to reveal himself. You also have all of those big pad synthesizers that we started to hear on X and Y. And so a lot of Cole play is still there. I kind of like my acoustic guitars and soft rock of the earlier era. And like snare drums played with brushes and,

or not even brushes, those like hybrid stick brushes things. Boom sticks. Boomsticks. Yeah, they feel like they love those boomsticks. Yeah, don't play the drums too loud, is what those are for. Maybe the other reason why this album didn't really stick with me is that it's a concept album. And it's kind of a rock opera. It's about a war between sound and color, they say.

It's very kind of vague. The details are that there's a imaginary planet called Silencia, a little on the nose there, where a dictator named Major Minus has all of these soldiers that serve him. One of them is Milo Zylodo. He is a sparker. I think I'm getting this right. And his job is to put out the light and all the art of other people. But then he meets a girlfriend who enlightens him to bring light into the world.

And they use music as their act of resistance. It's a lot. I'm not going to lie. I just forgot everything you just said. But please continue. You know, it probably didn't matter for most people because the album was a hit. I think it was a hit because they so thoroughly embrace the world of pop. They start being collaborators.

Pop music became very collaborative in this time, I think really borrowing from the strategies of hip hop. And they had collaborated already with Jay-Z off of a remix from Viva LaVita. But this is the first album where they have a featured singer. They bring in Rihanna on Princess of China. That's a lead T-drop. How did I not know that Rihanna and Coldplay had a song together just now? That's wild. You know, they're big collaborators.

This is really the start of embracing that pop technique of bringing on other big acts to expose their audience to your music. They later work with Beyonce, The Chain Smokers, Big Sean, Selena Gomez, BTS, so many other acts. And it's a great way of cross-pollinating because people want to be part of Coldplay's universe. I mean, at this point, they are a major stadium act. Thinking about the idea that the pop landscape is increasingly unfriendly to bands being, you know, chart-topping hits.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is maybe a smart move by Coldplay. We'll kind of have the best of both worlds. We'll keep our band together, but we'll reach across the aisle to some of these solo act pop stars and bring them into our world. And this is what they continue to do.

It is successful for them. For their 2014 album, Ghost Stories, they lean into making explicitly electronic synth pop music and bringing on collaborators like Mega Producer Timbalin, Madion, and the late Evils. When you listen to their big hit, a sky full of stars, it sounds like a progressive house track that could have played at an Avichi DJ set. That is four on the floor, EDM.

Side chain pumping, fist pumping music. Totally. It's a far cry from yellow. Wow. Yeah, that was acoustic, slow, spacious, raw. now it's very in your face polished. Everything feels totally quantized to the beat. It's not the cold play that we used to know.

But it establishes this pop stadium sound that they continue to perfect in their third era, which is where the music becomes almost devotional to this kind of ephemeral, worldly perspective, where they both diversify their soundscape and really try to spread a broad, message of love, compassion, and joy. And so on their next album, a head full of dreams, they continue to work with collaborators. They bring in the producer Stargate, a major pop songwriting duo who worked with like Katie Perry on Firework, Beyonce on Irreplaceable, a bunch of Rihanna songs like Rude Boy and diamonds.

And you can hear the influence of the ongoing EDM sound on vocal chops that were very popular in this era on a song like Army of One. Chris Martin said that he wanted this to be an uplifting record that is colorful and one that you can shuffle your feet to. Again, I think it's a swaying music or shuffling music. It's not quite like, as much as you might pump our fist a little bit. I just don't feel like I'm getting ready for a real EDM drop. It's more like being in the stadium all moving together as one. And it's a sound that they build into the music deliberately.

like Queen making We Will Rock You, where people should literally stomp along and clap their hands. Colplay are doing the same kind of thing. Colplay are asking for you to participate in their sort of big, vague, platitude in his lyrics on a song like Adventure of a Lifetime. By the way, background vocals by Mary Clayton. Do you know where she's from?

Mary Clayton. Wait a minute. Mary Clayton, Mary Clayton, Mary Clayton, Mary Clayton, Mary Clayton. She sang. on Rolling Stones. Pay Mary Clayton, y'all. Absolutely. Pay Mary Clayton for her participation on the Rolling Stones.

Give me Shelter. And it's great that Colplay brought her in as well. They also bring in Beyonce on this album for him for the weekend, a song which I think is sort of similarly like poised to be a stadium sing-along. Another track that I instantly recognize and yet could not tell you the name of. Yeah. You know, at this point, I actually really had sort of fallen off the Coldplay train, and yet they start making some really interesting creative choices.

I think embracing this idea of being this world stadium touring act. Their next album, Everyday Life, they start to also include a lot of world sounds. You can hear African choirs on the song Orphans. Gospel on Broken. Sahel Rock on Arabi. best. Beats a new age music on their song, Church. But it's more than just funny loon calls. This album, they get really serious. They start taking on global issues like gun violence. I think they are making some laudatory, creative moves, and yet perhaps this reach to

embrace this whole global audience and a set of important global issues falls a little bit flat. This is really their first album that doesn't have a hit that crosses a billion plays. And so I think searching for their center, they decide to go full on pop on their next album, Music of the Spheres, where they bring on super producer Max Martin, who had produced on just two of the songs on the previous album and decide to have him be really one of the main collaborators for their next record. And you can hear that influence of just like great fun 80s synth pop on a song like Higher Power. This to me is the good twin of the weekend's Blinding Lights Evil Twin, which Max Martin also worked on.

It has that same 80s synth pop vibe, but totally in an upbeat, positive kind of way. And this album has them sort of refining. their footing as that stadium band. They hadn't toured the last album, but here they are in 2021, with Music of the Spheres. They launch basically the longest running tour I can possibly imagine that is still taking place today. It's made over a billion dollars, 195 shows, 9.6 million people have gone out to see them, and it's a totally global experience, which makes sense. You know, they had brought on collaborators like BTS on this last album as well for a song like My Universe. And so they're reaching a K-pop audience, they're reaching a global audience, they are in their total stadium pop era of over-the-top worldly perspective, diverse sounds, the sort of devotional, like, positive music.

Yeah, this is very glossy, a bit platitudinous to quote a word that may not be real that you used earlier. But, you know, I think something I'm learning from from this. dive today is like this was always part of the DNA of the band yeah it's not really like some unprecedented radical departure it is an extension of these core sounds and lyrical directions that have been there from the very beginning and it's what they continue with their most recent album release moon music which they say is sort of like a sequel to music of the spheres the title makes sense I think maybe we're a little more grounded. We've gone from the spheres to the moon closer to the earth, if you will.

In an interview with Apple Music, Chris Martin said that this album has to do with accepting all the different phases of life, shining your light without any needs for anything in return, except for $44 million, which they reportedly got as an advance, the highest ever for an album, which does tell you that the music industry fully believes in this band. Like this band makes hits. They sell tickets. And the album is yet again a Max Martin production alongside other long-time collaborators like John Hopkins and other producers. And they bring in more voices like Burnaboy, Little Sims, even a quote from Maya Angelou on this record.

And the sounds continue to sound very poppy. Like you can hear it on the single, We Pray. It's a Coldplay song with 808 beats and international collaborators. Nate, at this point, if you're not into cold play, might I mention that they are incredibly charitable, that they've donated 10% of their profits to charity, that they've supported Amnesty International, Migrant, Offshore Aid Station, Global Citizen Festival, they have fought gun violence, poverty, raised money for the victims of the 2010, Haiti earthquake. They've supported fair trade goods. They've demonstrated their allyship to the LGBTQ plus community at the Super Bowl, where they proudly displayed rainbow imagery and received huge blowback from conservative pundits. They are active climate. citizens working on cleaning up the ocean and reducing the environmental impacts of touring through regenerative energy projects and on in on and on. So what do you think? I think I had some negativity coming into this conversation. They're selling positivity. And the more we we listened, the more those assumptions and biases kind of broke down. Now, will I start bumping these more

recent releases on the regular. Will I be fist pumping and head nodding to these four on the floor edm bangers with their messages of positivity? I don't know, frankly. I'm probably not going to become a convert for these more recent albums, but I do appreciate them in a way in that I can hear them as all part of a core aesthetic that this band has been committed to from the very beginning. And they are a band indivisible. They have stood by each other. They have found massive success while seeming to be kind of grounded at the same time. So I'm going to cautiously say I'm, if not a fan of Coldplay, I'm on their team. It also makes me think how much of the criticism of the band is only slightly camouflaged sexism and cynicism. Well, I mean, we've described them as kind of soft

limestone, kind of gentle, not really edgy in this way. And it's like, why is that so bad? Totally. Is it because it's not, we don't associate that with like masculine qualities or something that this band is like kind of weak or effeminate or something? Like, that's not a valid criticism. That's silly. All right.

Well, I feel like you are only tepidly on board. That's fair. And yet in my listening, I feel like I have come away with a grand operating theory of how cold play music works on people that I hope will convert you. I'm going to share it with you right after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to

achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations.

Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation? and border security, period. I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated.

My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. After going through the entire Spotify catalog, I really feel like I'm beginning to understand them and especially listening to their fan perspectives

in talking about how Coldplay makes them feel, their audience said, on days that I feel like shit, I can put on Coldplay and it calms me down. It's like a familiar blanket. Another fan said that they are one of the few bands that have a positive message and are just good souls. And yet another listener says that Colplay covers a wide variety of topics

but you can boil it down to love, faith, compassion, life and death. The band makes great songs that are fundamentally earnest in nature. These are universal themes. They are sometimes antithetical to what I teach in my own songwriting classes where we talk a lot about like adding specific details

that are unique to your life. Right, right. There's not a lot of like, like red scarves and cardigans in cold play. It's a lot of like, where are you? I love you. I'm reaching out to the universe. Everyone is wonderful.

Love is great. Yay. But there's a place for that in music. And in reviewing this entire body of work, I now understand cold play as secular worship music. Okay. Notting like that's the thing. Okay.

Worship music like Christian worship music that over the last many decades, has sort of merged religious music with pop instrumentation in sounds but with particular emphasis on rock instrumentation ethereal big organ and string pad sounds and a unique song form that isn't so much our typical verse chorus song form

but the ever-building crescendo so you can take a song like oceans A 2013 song from Hillsong United, one of the big worship music groups. And it begins in the space of open, heavenly-like pads, strings. We're in a slow tempo. Piano enters. And then lyrics that ponder uncertainty in the world. A repeating guitar riff comes in to build.

And the song builds and builds as drums enter to create an enormous amount of energy like you're overwhelmed by a higher power. The song concludes in a moment of quiet and we have the experience of peace at last. This is the worship formula and it really co-developed at the time that Coldplay was coming up who were playing similar instrumentation with a very very very very important. very similar, ever-building crescendo-like song form. There's no better example in their catalog than their song, Fix You from 2005, a big hit off their third album.

We start with a church organ in a song about overcoming adversity and finding solace in a light that can guide you home. Like Chris Martin saying that hustle culture and secular life is not giving us meaning And the stops come out of the organ Loss has entered life And yet there is a solution Lights, strings, piano, voices they all come in to save you.

Chris Martin may not be God, but he's going to fix you. The song slowly builds from here, adding piano and guitars. The sound becomes bigger, more reverberant. Drums and a chorus of singers take us into the heavens. And then the song concludes with a calming, quiet feeling of peace. All right, Charles, you're coming in hot with some provocative theories here, but man, when I listen to these two songs back to back, it's hard to disagree. And then you realize this whole time, we've been discussing songs like we pray, songs like church.

And you're like, wait a minute, is this a Christian rock band? No, no, no, no, no. Chris Martin did grow up in a Christian household, but said that he distanced himself from religion. And in an interview said that he considers himself an altheist, not an atheist, an altheist. Okay, I don't like them again. Sorry, I'm off the train. I'm off the Cloverly train after that. I don't know what's wrong with you. I think that this is wonderful.

I feel like the secular world needs uplift, compassion, joy, lyrics about love and overcoming pain that are open to interpretation, that aren't about scarves that you left behind at a lover's house. sometimes you just need a giant stadium full of people looking for a meaning that has a never-ending build and a giant message of belonging. I understand that we are in the middle of high holy days and that you may be pursuing other religious activities. But I implore you, Nate, I think it might be worth us one day going to one of these giant stadium concerts and experiencing this great sense of belonging, no matter who you are, no matter how you worship, whatever. it might be, I think we should grow our appreciation for cold play in the same way that they know how to grow a song to make you feel like you belong in this world. I'm not going to hit on that.

I'll take that as a half concession. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Arrest Gottlieb. We're a part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. You can find more episodes anywhere you get podcasts. And you can talk to us on social media at Switched on Pop. Tell us about what you love, what you hate about Coldplay, or maybe you don't feel any kind of which way. But after listening to this, maybe you do.

We'll be back again next Tuesday for a brand new episode. And until then, thanks for listening.