Coldplay: First Alternative Band Liked

It has been about four years since I discovered the alternative Brit band in 2008. I was watching the Grammy's and during that time was surrounded by a bubble of bubble gum pop music and anything else playing on Kiss FM, never knowing there was a genre of music that I viewed as a part of my unique personality that is far from ordinary. Sure I downloaded Flo Rida's hit single "Right Round" because I wanted to be like any other eleven year old, thinking they know what's 'in' without ever considering the alternative, which is what I do now, literally.

"Song of the Year" was announced and I only had ties to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours", and after Coldplay took home the golden record player I was slightly disappointed but curious. I looked up the hit single "Viva La Vida" from the band's  fourth album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, and was suddenly hooked. The pounding drums, famous choppy guitar melody, beautiful arrangement of strings and Chris Martin's hypnotic and charming voice singing of a lost kingdom, dissolving reputation, and different historical and Christian references gave me four minutes of a different kind of music, and what music nowadays should sound like.

After knowing how the band formed, memorizing each band members' names and who they were by heart, downloading songs off of every album, hanging a poster that my dad brought back from Germany on my wall, liking them on Facebook and even watching a low budget biography on them, I had soon realized one more thing that I needed to do: go to one of their concerts.

I had found a bump in the road, however, which was the release of their new album Mylo Xyloto. I had known about it for a while and was really excited because in the approximate four year span of my crazy Coldplay fan phase, the band was busy touring and were at a slight downfall in popularity since it had been a while since their last album, meaning most of my friends hadn't heard of them before and I could only relate to the 'older' generation. I did listen to every song on the breakthrough album, but I guess the true fan in me was too stubborn to accept that they were trying new sounds much too different from the previous albums. The band is still incredible, but I'd much rather listen to the simplistic and cute "Green Eyes" than the fist-pumping "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall".