INSIDE SPIN EDITOR’S LETTER

“Okay, you win. Your stubble is much downier than mine.”

The Big Chill

I KNEW COLDPLAY WERE GOING to be huge the moment I heard “Yellow” at my dry cleaner’s.

It was eight years ago, not long after their debut album, Parachutes, came out. Ignoring criticisms that pegged them as a simpering Jeff Buckley/Radiohead hybrid (that’s a bad thing?), I was already hooked by the glorious melodrama of “Trouble” and “Shiver,” not to mention all of the other heavenward choruses. (But, then, I also have no problem crying at movies—that is, when I’m not out bow hunting in a loincloth.) That a new British alt-rock band inspired by the likes of Echo & the Bunnymen were getting airtime in a Manhattan mom-and-pop signaled, to me at least, that a major crossover was in the offing.

The first time I saw the band live, in 2002, I was surprised by frontman Chris Martin’s tentativeness onstage. But by the next two shows I attended, he had transformed into a virtual whirling dervish, playfully attacking his piano and acting out for the nosebleed seats—the very definition of “eager to please.” Coldplay offered a concert experience both exhilarating and, yes, life-affirming; I have little doubt that their current tour will provide the same.

Which brings me to their new, “experimental” fourth album. At a time when fewer and fewer event records actually satisfy past the first single and more and more musicians confuse prolificness with ambition, this is one that has been worth the three-year wait. For this month’s cover story, writer Michael Joseph Gross was granted extraordinary access to the band as they prepared to release Viva La Vida. What he found was a group of guys ready to “rule the world,” as Martin sings on the title track, but still questioning every little step they’ll have to take to accomplish that goal. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a revelatory read.

Doug Brod

Editor