News ·
Chris Martin says Radiohead are the braver band
first posted on Treefingers by Miro · rewritten for the archive
Chris Martin of Coldplay tells the Detroit Free Press that he pictures Radiohead hacking a way through the jungle, with Coldplay following on behind to pave it. I always see Radiohead as the braver people.
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Radiohead have been on his mind since January, when he told The Sun that “Airbag” was what he felt getting off his small plane after it lurched through a Saharan dust storm over Ghana.
Talking to Newsweek in late May, shortly before X&Y, Coldplay's third album, came out, Martin admitted he winced when Thom Yorke, one of his heroes, called Coldplay “lifestyle music”. The magazine took it as a jab at songs that turn up everywhere, from airports to parents' iPods. Martin likened Coldplay to an eager dog yapping at Radiohead's heels while Radiohead try to kick it away.
It's like unrequited love. I'm in love with a lot of things. Some of those things love me back. And some of them don't - and one of them is Radiohead.
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In a WENN interview out in early June, Martin recalls that Yorke once compared his band to the United Nations and said he was America. Martin says he is America in Coldplay too, with Jonny Buckland as China, cleverer than him but quieter, and Will Champion as Russia, hard to win over and loyal once won. It's a very good parallel. And not the first thing we've stolen from Radiohead.
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