News: Coldplay don’t like how people speak

Well, okay, not exactly. But Coldplay, the quintessentially not-very-good-anymore British band, have told yank talk show Good Morning America that their new album’s title is frankly a bit daft.

Lead warbler Chris Martin said:

It’s just something that we thought looked really good but everywhere we go around the world people pronounce it in the most crazy ways and we’re beginning to regret it now.

Not sure how a title like Mylo Xyloto could look good for an album full of early 90s disco rip offs, unless it was being released in the arse-end of Africa. It’s probably likely that they were aiming for high search engine optimisation, but to do it with an album title like this is just stupid.

Coldplay won Best British Group at the Brit Awards the other month, somehow. Martin continued to flaunt the band’s pseudo-modest image by claiming that they won it purely because they’re “the only British band left on the pitch”. Which is true if you count British bands who sell heaps. It’s nice to know that Coldplay think about the minnows of the music world when accepting awards, like.

So maybe this retrospection will make them think twice while recording their sixth album, which I hear has the working title Soewinwerjwnisdfmxxx.

List: NME Awards, predictable as expected

In perhaps one of the most predictable ceremonies of recent years, The Horrors, Florence and the Machine and The Arctic Monkeys took home the big prizes at this year’s NME Awards.

The Horrors nabbed the night’s gong for Best Album, which went to Skying, a record I personally didn’t like. Sure, it’s a step up from the band’s previous work, but when your first album sounded like a family of cats in a tumble drier the only way is up. Speaking more seriously, I’ve heard little but good about their third work so I assume it’s just a taste thing.

NME’s love affairs with certain bands were incredibly prominent, with Kasabian taking perhaps the most prestigious award of the night, Best British Band. I guess it’s just a relief to see that neither of the Gallaghers’ respective bands were up for this one…

One thing Noel Gallagher was up for, though, was “Godlike Genius” - I am not making this up - which he accepted after a long video of a bunch of better-known celebrities spewing kind words in his general direction. A big feat given his sole purpose seems to be to rile his brother.

There was a bit of controversy, too, if such a thing can be generated at an event like this - Florence and the Machine went away with the Best Solo Act trophy, despite almost certainly being a band. She even managed to beat more worthy winners, like Frank Turner and Laura Marling. I haven’t a clue what Miles Kane has done to deserve a nod for this, though, unless pretending to be the third Gallagher son is something to be rewarded these days.

And then, in the most desperate of desperate attempts to win over some new young rebels, Villain of the Year (at the NME Awards, remember!) went to Justin Bieber, beating away competition from Liberal Democrat backstabber Nick Clegg and, uh, Liam Gallagher. Yeah.

The Biebz also grabbed Worst Album for his genuinely horrendous Christmas effort Under the Mistletoe - more cynical critics might have opined that Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto was a better pick, and to see Viva Brother in the nominees list is quite refreshing.

And finally, representing Scotland, Rockness was named Best Small Festival in perhaps the most deserved award of the night. Well done lads!

The full list of winners and nominees can be found on the NME’s website.

Listen: The Horrors - “Still Life”

List: Adele dominates best-sellers

Sorry, but I had to post this, even though Adele is pretty much the music equivalent of Marmite (except I would hope Marmite isn’t all over the goddamn place all the freaking time). Her second album, imaginatively titled 21, has just broken the record for the best-selling album of the twenty-first century.

Of course this was far from unexpected; having your music used as soundtrack to everything certainly helps. But it was the margin of her victory that proves how much of a hold Miss Adkins had on the year.

The Official Charts Company reports that 21 sold a massive 3.4 million copies this year alone. That doesn’t sound a lot, maybe, but the nearest rival was herself. 19, her debut album released in 2009, was second with 1.1 million. That’s less than a third of the sales of the winner. Unreal.

Although, to me, the most remarkable entry is Michael Buble’s Christmas - despite having only been released for the festive season, it is still somehow the seventh-best seller this year ahead of Ed Sheeran’s fairly awesome + and Coldplay’s… uhm, interesting effort Mylo Xyloto.