Britain might be in the grip of what the Sun has dubbed Coldplaymania - 105 copies of new album X&Y were sold per minute last week, but, writes Lars Eriksen, the US is less convinced. In last Sunday's New York Times (subscription) a piece was published by John Pareles in which he called Coldplay the decade's most insufferable band
Pareles concedes that the band "have mastered the mechanics of pop songwriting" but laments their insistence on high-pitched songs that expose the fragility of Chris Martin's voice ("he makes a sound somewhere between a yodel and a hiccup") and lyrics that make Pareles "wish he didn't understand English."
"It's supposed to be compassionate, emphatic, magnanimous, inspirational. But, when the music swells up once more with tremolo guitars and chiming keyboards, and Martin's voice breaks for the umpteenth time, it sounds like hokum to me."
The Daily Telegraph reprinted an edited version of Pareles' rant yesterday, with their longstanding pop critic Neil McCormick defending the band and their 'vast soundscapes'.
But Pareles is not the only US writer getting cold feet over the first male British band to have a new entry in the US Top 10 singles chart since The Beatles.
The Oregonian concedes that there are worse bands out there, but joins in the chorus of disapproval - "even insecure mopes deserve better". Reviewer Marty Hughley looks in vain for "insight, passion, poetry, personality" but finds only "Martin's fragile, grey-day voice [which] draws you in only to smother you in obviousness, clichés and platitude."
Rashod D Ollison of the Baltimore Sun is even less sympathetic. "The music is too pumped up at times, full of surging arrangements that are so meticulously crafted there's hardly a sign of a pulse underneath. And Martin, the heart-in-hand chap with the idiosyncratic vocal style, goes into self-pity overload."
