Coldplay

It was a storming set, so fulll of joy.
I love Chris Martine he has particularly fine forearms.

My teen came with me the last time I saw them live, she's also been to Arctic Monkeys with DH....I like some of her music (Olivia Rodrigo, TS etc) but she also goes with friends to bands I've never heard of, her taste in music is far wider than mine was at her age or even now

Exactly! The Beatles started out as pure pop, and ended up with some fairly random stuff. Music is just personal choice at the end of the day.

I don't care for their music, not my thing at all. But watching them on TV last night I had to admit they put on a good show, the crowd was clearly loving it and their enthusiasm was endearing.

I also don't necessarily hold with the view that pop music = bad music. I personally don't listen to much pop music at all, but I can appreciate that a decent, well-written pop song takes talent and just because something is popular that doesn't mean it should automatically be sneered at. One of the best things about getting older IMO is that I don't feel obliged to limit myself to a particular genre or care about what other people think is worthy.

Enjoyed watching it. Cringe at Michael Eavis when he was being thanked. His face looked like thunder.

Ah right the marketing is what made them huge eh !!
I didn't know they wanted to be massive in America from their early 2000s. Sounds very obvious that they wanted to be yet they are the most quiet dull speakers ever. Odd they never split up when coldplay got huge and CM could of gone solo. For example the band members didn't want to travel etc and didn't need crazy levels of money... lol

As you say other pop indie bands had much better songs or similar initial songs/ hits.
Sounds like you saw CM before he made millions and millions. Imagine his ego if you had met him even in 2009 let alone now.

There were a few this weekend I'd never heard of at all, definitely after my time types. Whether they'd affect the demographic of those attending I can't say. Just watching sky news here and they have a piece on Kneecap from NI being there. So the less famous stuff is obviously still being showcased in the tents/ smaller stages.

I'm going to watch it in a min and know I will cry buckets. My DD loved Coldplay when they first came out and she has suffered MH illness since childhood. Yellow is the song I would play for her even though there are so many songs she likes more. Look at the stars look how they shine for you. But her life has been a constant uphill drag due to MH.
Other songs have been handholders for us they seem to be on at moments we need a hug. Sky full of Stars, Christmas Lights Don't Panic, an endless list of comfort songs for some reason.
But as is often the case when somebody is good and open and kind in this country we put them down. Record breaking audience I hope they headline again.

I don’t think it is that as it is pretty much everyone I chatted to. It is a world away from the regular, boring jobs that most people do though so that is probably why the difference is so stark. Glastonbury is a corporate affair though, looking to cash in on the ageing music lover, I can blame them for that, I think that is a sad situation for youngsters. Evidence of this is the acts they have on now. I honestly like a variety of music but the fact is some of the acts they have had on this weekend were not musically interesting originally let alone now!

They are a storming live band. Saw them at Shepherds Bush Empire a couple of years ago, which was fantastic.

Me too, it was epic. Unfortunately Danny from The Script was in front of me and kept bouncing up and down like tigger (although it was a really good concert).

People are so snooty about music - it's just entertainment, who cares?

I love all kinds of stuff - dgaf what's "cool" and what's not, I just enjoy the songs

They have always been mummy pop

They have always been bland beige shite

Or maybe they're just OTT people? Who knows? Can't really blame Glastonbury for that!

Also, you say, ‘what harm’ it is not harm so much but I have a 17 year old and we live in a vibrant city with a big music scene so he does get to go to some ‘gigs’ but nothing like my youth and all the festivals, more well known acts are way too expensive and aren’t trying to appeal to him anyway! My DH has family that are musicians from the 90s /00s and when I’m at parties where their friends attend I do notice that they are very friendly but they’re quite intense for people that are older than us so they are fifties, I feel in our early 40’s I left that outlook behind when I was latest mid 20s. I suppose if you have people saying how great you are and your music then maybe it is hard to see yourself as a regular middle aged person.

I went in 2009 and there were a fair few eccentric types to be sure! Possibly fuelled by some herbs 😂 But it was absolutely brilliant, I loved it. We came over from Ireland for it. We were blessed with fabulous weather after the first night too. Didn't get to see half of it as so big, but there were so many great acts. Sigh! It feels like a very long time ago now!

I liked them back in day. It was first/ second year of college so they were everywhere. I've never seen them live I don't think.

Is it really full of Nutters still? When I went as teenager it definitely had that side to it but I didn't care as I was a teenager but now it’s on breakfast news FGS either the Scottish journalist asking what families what stuff they have with them for their stay- really rock and roll stuff😬. Equally, what is the ticket price -£400 or something ridiculous, what typical teenager is going to be able to afford that and at the price you don’t get your average ‘butter’ attending of yesteryear. Like all these things from my youth, Camden market for example all the edginess has gone and there is something distinctively unappealing about music that is made for adverts and corporations.

Hell I can't say much in terms of taste. I bloody love Eurovision!

I think there is a certain amount of influence in terms of marketing rather than sounds being more appealing though. The whole thing with Coldplay was their marketability to the US which other bands in their peer group didn't have. It's the wholesome culture thing and choice of management that made the difference imho.

Interestingly, I tend not to like any modern music. The formulae aren't working on me 😂

Lots of pop is the result of focus groups these days. It has to appeal to as many people as possible, therefore it would need to be bland/average, I guess (whatever this means in terms of melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, tonality, texture, structure etc.).

That may be, but if it sounds good in people's ears and brains, then it is 'good'. It achieves it's objective of being pleasurable. This is obviously simplistic, but I think people are quite simplistic when it comes to music in general. I don't think people should be judging others tastes. I've been to take that, Westlife, Bruce, glasto, Steve Earle, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. It's a mix but who cares, I like it!

They have done computer analysis of pop music since the 1960s and have found a trend of movement to including everything but also moving to the average in musicality.

So it's not just a matter of opinion. There is also a scientific and observable trend towards averageness which I find fascinating.

This.

Definitely this.

I've never been arsed about the cool not cool thing with bands. I've liked a lot of bands who are very uncool. I bought Shiver when it came out and liked it. I saw them playing around then when no one else interesting and met Chris Martin a number of times.

Therein lies my problem.

As a band they are nice enough but I found them bland and a bit dull after Shiver. Yellow was nice enough and great for a singalong but that's as far as I go. They play well and I can't fault them on that.

I think a fair few people who saw them back in 1999/2000 thought they'd go in a different direction musically and I think that's also part of the problem. Music snobbery? Perhaps. Shiver promised more and after Parachutes that enthusiasm fizzled out.

Then theres Chris Martin himself. It's a long story which I'm not going into here and I stress we never bothered him nor approached him (quite the opposite) but yeah, prick.

I've met a lot of bands over the years as I was just into the music and we just got to know people. Plenty of idiots and unlikeables. However Chris Martin is the one that stands out as the total knobber and pissed me off with his ego.

So for me it's partly personal and partly just not getting the hype after Shiver. There were plenty of better bands doing similar at the time. I found Coldplay more bland and the least interesting. Then Chris Martin started to be Knock Off Bono. I love U2 but I find Bono irritating when he does his whole sanctimonious thing. That just killed Coldplay stone dead for me. It was too contrived and insincere. It smacked of Americanisation and commercialisation in a way that grated and took away from the actual music. Bono is genuine about it and didn't copycat. And U2 had an edginess as well as the wholesome Christian thing that appealed to the American market as well as the UK market, which Coldplay didn't. If it had been just about the music, I'd probably have been less turned off about it. It was something of a culture clash between the UK music scene which was edgier and the UK market which had to be squeaky clean. So I would say the biggest issue is the US / UK music scene culture clash rather than it being a cool kids thing tbh.

It was also clearly partly driven by Martin's ego and who he was hanging out with at the time. Our encounters with him previously said a lot about him and what happened subsequently. I don't have a lot of time for people like that.

I will happily talk about U2 when the cool kids say they hate them. People find them a bit MOR like Coldplay but I love them. But Coldplay? I'd say I was more indifferent about Coldplay musically. They are 'nice'. In that indifferent pleasant enough way without being offensive or too interesting way. Not my cup of tea, but I guess that has wide appeal with people who are not that into music and just happy enough with mass commercialised stuff. I don't get the worship of them. It's weird. I'd call them the coffeetable-book of music for people who don't really know or care about music but want to look like they do. That's fair enough. But you can hardly call Coldplay ground breaking in anyway and that's always going to be reflected in attitudes to them.