Just imagine the fuss if somebody truly amazing came along. Us critics would have to drag ourselves out from up Thom Yorke's arse and quickly concoct a whole new raft of superlatives to replace all those old ones we've so glibly frittered away on the nice-but-ordinary likes of Coldplay.
Album of the Year, apparently, but ten years ago this bunch would have been happy scoring a perfunctory 30-second glimpse of their grubby new video on The Chart Show's Indie rundown. Nowadays they go straight in at No.4 on the proper, grown-up Top 40 and find themselves feted as the next big thing.
True 'Yellow' is a cut above virtually everything else out there at the moment but please bear in mind that these are dark, doleful times we currently endure. Like the rest of 'Parachutes' though, it's initial doe-eyed cuteness all to quickly starts to cloy. As a conceit it's fairly affecting but a conceit it remains all the same. You can't help but dwell on the fact also that 'yellow' too readily calls to mind the sour hue of stained y-fronts. Oh yeah and it's a third-rate rip-off of The Boo Radley's mighty 'Lazarus' into the bargain. There, that should have killed the magic for you.
Widely regarded as the next Travis, on this evidence Coldplay are more redolent of Embrace's early way with a tune. What they lack though, particularly on the quirky waltz-time fade-out of last track 'Everything's Not Lost', is Embrace's who-you-looking-at swagger. 'Parachutes' is just all so very, very polite and unassuming; 'We Never Change' might bravely plonk itself down at the old pianna in-between Tom Waits and Randy Newman but it too quickly realises that it really hasn't got a great deal to say for itself.
Album of the Year then but only for those poor battered souls who've just discovered the warm hug of well-spoken melancholy. It can't do any harm either that they were all probably too interested in Buzz Lightyear at the time to be aware of 'The Bends' when it came out.
