Mylo Xyloto Tracklist
Mylo Xyloto is the fifth studio album by British alt-rock group Coldplay. Though the album was a commercial hit, both fans and critics were divided about the new, electronic-heavy direction taken by the band most likely due to the influence of producer Brian Eno, who also produced Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.
“Mylo Xyloto” Q&A
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Is Mylo Xyloto a storyline about two lovers?
According to Songfacts, lead singer Chris Martin told Music Week:
Well, I think we wanted to do an album this time with a happy ending and I think we’ve actually done it, which we never thought we’d do. For whatever reason it is, it’s happened and that was very late in the day and it’s nice that song ‘cos you just hit everything as hard as possible – which for a band like Coldplay is a very pleasurable thing.
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What has the band said about the album?
According to Songfacts, Chris Martin explained to Music Week:
It [the title] means whatever you want it to mean. [To me] it means a freedom of expression and you can think up new words if you want to. There’s still things that you can invent and words beginning with X are few and far between so we thought we might try and add one.“We really felt like the album is so under threat as a format that we should really make an effort to really tie it all together. And even if they don’t want to own it all, it makes sense as one thing, should anyone be interested in that. So if you want to find a narrative through it you can, which is something that we just enjoyed doing.
Dummer Will Champion also told MTV News:
Very early on in the process of recording this record, we were playing a lot of acoustic instruments and we had it in our mind that we might try to record a small-sounding, intimate, reflective record. And then “Paradise“ came about, and it dawned on us that we couldn’t play it in that acoustic style. So we thought, ‘OK, we’ll finish this one and then we’ll do another record,’ and the realization came very quickly that we can’t really focus on more than one thing at once.
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Anything else about the album that the band declared?
Chris Martin explained to Q magazine:
The whole thing is supposed to be a kind of story so they all fit together and that is the two characters from the previous two songs when they meet each other. It’s about meeting someone you love and feeling powerful, when you meet someone and suddenly everything feels alright again. The ideas come from graffiti art of the ‘70s in New York, where people were expressing themselves with paint. Then there was the White Rose Movement. Anybody who’s standing up for themselves. It’s about being free to be yourself and to express yourself among negative surroundings. Being able to speak out or follow your passion, even if everybody seems against it.
Bassist Guy Berryman also revealed to Music Week:
We got quite far down the line with designing characters and then we abandoned that idea and moved into a different direction, retaining elements of the acoustic album and the soundtrack album, so what we’ve ended up with is an album that we arrived at in quite an unusual sort of way. So it’s kind of a hotchpotch of all those different phases.
