midranger wrote:MikeIsGood wrote:Coldplay is cool to hate because the music they make now could not be more different than what they started with that many fans fell in love with.
ETA: Not trying to **** on them too hard - I don't hate them or love them (anymore). I last went about 10 years ago for the exact same 'fun concert' reason and agree it's a good time.
This is really interesting. I wasn’t aware on this. Is it common in the Coldplay fan community? If so what album was the change point?
Coldplay came around while I was in college and I bought the first three albums on CD and listened to them extensively. I thought they had a similar enough sound, but you could tell the band was progressing/evolving and the music was becoming more produced and less stripped down. But in 08, I was getting married and moving off for residency and kids started to come, so I went like 6-7 years without listening to anything new until I finally found Spotify. By that time, of course their sound was very different but I just figured as they continued to get bigger as a band, their sound just got bigger and bigger. I didn’t realize, OG fans may have viewed it as a sell out or something disappointing.
I’m more in what I guess would be called the jam band community. Phish fans are super finicky about old vs middle vs newer Phish. I doubt it’s the same phenomenon with Coldplay as the fan base isn’t a bunch of 30-50 year old cranky wooks. But I’d be interested in hearing more about it.
I don't even know what a recent Coldplay song is so I looked up their last top 10 hit, compared to an "old fan" favorite from their debut. Yeah you can see how it would be a little polarizing.
I can't speak to what the fan community thinks because I'm not in it, but I would imagine that the overlap of old and new fans is millenial women. Which is obviously not nothing, but in looking what their last top 10 hit was, I discovered that most of their singles are barely top 100 now. I feel like they just survive on name and touring? Because yeah, banger of the show with all of the lights and performance. From what I saw in pics, set from last night looks exactly like it did 10 years ago, though
What I can say is that I had a big group of friends who always went to Coldplay back in the day. First two albums were what I liked; obviously a lot of people liked Fix You which was album #3, and then Viva La Vida which was #4. None of us listen to them anymore, though a couple went to the concert last night for nostalgia. And they said CP played many of the old hits, and they happily danced to the new songs they didn't know.
I think I sound more crotchety about it than I really am. What's interesting is, again, looking at their top singles, none of the old stuff I liked so much charted well either. They weren't this super big band back then; they felt borderline indie (hello, college), a little shoegazy at times. So it did feel like a bit of a sellout back in the day, but it was more just disappointment than anything. I think they probably just tried to keep up with the times after they did start getting big singles like Viva, and they got interested in music trends and being a big arena rock band, so their sound changed :shrug: