After
Radiohead stubbornly refused to accept the mantle of "world's biggest and most important rock band" by releasing the willfully strange rocktronica fusion
Kid A in 2000,
Coldplay stepped up to the plate with their debut,
Parachutes. Tasteful, earnest, introspective, anthemic, and grounded in guitars, the British quartet was everything
Radiohead weren't but what the public wanted them to be, and benefited from the Oxford quintet's decision to abandon rock stardom for arcane art rock.
Parachutes became a transatlantic hit and 2002's sequel,
A Rush of Blood to the Head, consolidated their success by being bigger and better than
Parachutes, positioning
Coldplay to not be just the new
Radiohead, but the new
U2: a band that belongs to the world but fans believe that the music is for them alone. To that end,
Coldplay's third album,
X&Y -- slightly delayed so it follows
Rush of Blood by nearly three years, but that's no longer than the time separating
OK Computer and
Kid A, or
The Unforgettable Fire and
The Joshua Tree -- is designed to be the record that elevates
Coldplay to the major leagues, where they are at once the biggest and most important band in the world. It's deliberate and sleek, cinematic and pristine, hip enough to sample
Kraftwerk and blend in fashionable retro-'80s post-punk allusions without altering the band's core. Indeed,
X&Y is hardly a bold step forward, but rather a consolidation of
Coldplay's strengths, particularly their skill at crafting surging, widescreen epics. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine