Coldplay

[cosmolinguist]

Apparently, I am cursed to be the only person in my given surroundings who doesn't like Coldplay.

I can't stand them. And those who like them seem to really like them.

Comments

[kingnuthing.livejournal.com]

You're not alone. Coldplay sucks.

Yay!

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you. It is good to know I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Re: Yay!

[kingnuthing.livejournal.com]

Well I'm a metal head, listen to lots of extreme metal, and that's about it....so I'm also extremely biased :) But if you want support on a band that's getting all the rage and you don't like them, I'll be right beside you! lol

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

I like them, but they definitely seem to be one of those bands that you either love or hate.

[g-nice.livejournal.com]

people get mad at me when i call them out as "radiohead-lite for the dave mathews band crowd".

they ain't my cup of tea neither.

[cosmolinguist]

Hey, that isn't fair! I like Radiohead, and love Dave Matthews, and I hate Coldplay, so this seems all wrong. You'd be giving them too much credit to describe them thusly. :-)

said with harmless smirk:

[g-nice.livejournal.com]

another misstep by me, i see. honestly, if i had to choose between coldplay and DMB, dave would not get the call. radiohead is cool, even though i don't listen to them all that much. i'm going to take a wild guess and say that you're also into john mayer?

Re: said with harmless smirk:

[cosmolinguist]

As much as I hate to be predictable, in this case, I certainly am. Dave Matthews Band, Howie Day, and John Mayer all seem roughly equivalent so it should be no surprise that I love them all.

Re: said with harmless smirk:

[g-nice.livejournal.com]

it is nothing to be ashamed of. i just equate all those bands with each other. frankly, i'm kind of surprised that you don't like coldplay, they're probably my favorite of the bunch (not that you should frame your tastes according to mine, you understand. i'm just saying).

howie day opened form my old band at a restaurant about 3 months before he got big. he takes longer to get ready than he does to actually play. nice guy, though.

Re: said with harmless smirk:

[cosmolinguist]

Well, I don't think it's bad to like them, just bad to be predictable. :-)

The funny thing is, it never would have occurred to me to throw Coldplay in that group. I suppose this is just because I really like the others and really don't like Coldplay, because I have heard people say they've been really affected by some song, they really love them, they have some good story (my roommate, the one who was freaking out about hearing the Coldplay song this morning, has a good story about it), or something. I just don't get it; Coldplay drives me crazy. :-)

I imagine with all his equipment for loopping himself and such, it probably would take Howie Day longer to set up than to play.

::chuckles::

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

I had to laugh a little when reading your post and the comments made by your LJ readers. Back when I heard "Yellow" on the radio without knowing the artist's name, I thought it was Dave Matthews Band. It sounded very similar to his/their style. When I found out it was another band, I thought that a lot of DMB fans would like their music too. That's why it's kind of amusing that you like everything in that list your friend gave but Coldplay. The few songs I've heard I like, but I'm not a huge fan or anything. Kudos to you to being accepting of other's musical tastes, even if they are opposite of your own. :)

Warning: I'm very strange

[cosmolinguist]

Being a fan(atic) of Dave Matthews myself, I don't see how one could confuse the two, but like I said, aparently other people see this connection so I'll just accept it on faith and humor you guys.

Imeediately after thinking that, I realized that Howie Day--who's already been mentioned in another comment thread here as someone I love!--does a cover of "Yellow" that I'm perfectly okay with.

So maybe it isn't their songs I have a problem with, it's just the way they play their instruments (and I know it's probably the way that guy sings; it grates on my nerves). I don't know if that's better or worse, though.

Re: Warning: I'm very strange

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

Funny...the way Dave Matthews sings grates on MY nerves. His voice just doesn't sit well with my ears.

[silverwraith.livejournal.com]

I just recently got into Coldplay. I really like their Parachutes album, although I'm still digesting the new one...it seems a little different from the first and I don't know if I like it as much. anyway, I read some review somewhere that said Coldplay was like U2, only "slowed down and with a piano." erm...NO! whoever said that is a stupid twat. I'm a U2 fan and I would never compare them other than to say they were both from the UK region.

I love Radiohead, though. I need to get some more of their stuff. I only have The Bends and Pablo Honey.

[cosmolinguist]

Trying to compare bands to other bands (or movies, books, actors, anything really) seems the acme of foolishness to me. Either the new thing being compared to the legend is actually striving to be the same--ini which case they're probably boring and not worth worrying about anyway--or the attempted comparison is silly and inaccurate. This one is.

I hesitate to say authoritatively that Coldplay is nothing like U2, since I don't see how they're like DMB either ... but what the heck, I'll say it anyway. :-) I love U2. And it always irritates me to hear things I like compared to things I don't (like those people who insist Macy Gray's voice is just like Billie Holliday's. Come on!)

[silverwraith.livejournal.com]

I work with this guy who insists the lead guitarist for Phish is better than Garcia from the Grateful Dead. as if. I dismiss him with a wave of my hand. Trey's good...but he's not better than Jerry. forget it.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I do like some of their songs, but they sure got the "next big thing" sort of treatment for a while.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I might not be so bothered by them if their songs didn't get total saturation radioplay to the point where even I, who so rarely listen to the radio, am innundated with their songs. (I knew which ones were by Coldplay, and that I didn't like them, before I knew the name of the group. And what kind of silly name is that, anyway?)

[scarlett-harlot.livejournal.com]

I'm meh on Coldplay...I don't mind them, but I don't go out of my way to listen to them.

[kratkrat.livejournal.com]

(This comment is going to be long and a little strange, but I'm going somewhere with it...)

So, let me know if you ever do read "The Geographer at Work." There is this interesting statistical trick called "multidimensional scaling." In a nutshell: it's a way to measure a sort of "space" that is perceptual, rather than in the real world. Classic example: Pizza toppings. One is far more likely to see pepperoni ordered with sausage than you are to see it ordered with pineapple. Thus, in "pizza space," pepperoni is closer to sausage than it is to pineapple. In addition, pepperoni is far more popular than is pineapple, and is ordered with more stuff. Were you to "map" pizza space, you would find pepperoni in the center, whereas pineapple is marginalized, out on the periphery of "pizza space."

What does this have to do with Coldplay, Dave Matthews, and the rest?

Well, during my junior year at good old PSU I did a very unscientific study of lots of people... anyone I could get my hands on, I had them list their 5 favorite bands. Then, using some multidimensional scaling, I created a "map" of "band space." In it, one could see definite "regions" or neighborhoods. In the center were popular bands, or performers who were liked by a broad cross-section of listeners. There was a neighborhood with the likes of Billy Joel and Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel, a sort of "easy listening but not exactly dull" group. Another "region" had hard rock/metal, and halfway between the metal and Billy Joel were classic rockers. In a different "region" on the map, very near to each other, were INXS and U2 and REM... which is sort of funny, because I didn't like any of those bands, and they sort of fell into the same classification in my head, so it was cool to see them appear near each other on the "map."

What would somebody use a map like this for? Well, I had a second little part of my survey: I asked people if they got along with their roommate(s). Where possible, I had people "place" themselves on the resultant map. Funny enough, people who got along well tended to be relatively "close" to their roomie on the map. Those who butted heads more frequently tended to be farther apart in "band space." Sort of a "music is the window on the soul" type effect, huh?

So... I would wonder where one might find Coldplay, were I to run the same little informal study again.

Anyway, multidimensional scaling is neat stuff. Let me know if you ever read the book. If you do, think back on this little discussion, and what a modern map of "band space" might look like.

[cosmolinguist]

That. is. so. cool.

[cosmolinguist]

Could you perhaps tell me who wrote this "Geographer at Work" book of yours?

[kratkrat.livejournal.com]

It was written by the late Peter Gould, who was a professor of mine at Penn State and one of the most influential geographers of the last 30 years. He was a good instructor, too... very interesting to listen to. That style carried through to his writing, which I always thought was rather engaging, and the best example of that was "The Geographer at Work."

Let me know if you read it, and what you think!