Monthly Archives: October 2011

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 7)

Coldplay

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 7)

This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference:

My son Hunter Hatcher’s 14th favorite song of Coldplay is Politik.

Uploaded by on Dec 19, 2007

From the live 2003 DVD.
This video is (c) 2003 EMI Records Ltd

______________________

Well, hey, they can always change their names when they grow up.

So back the music. This band is described as rock, but I have to frown at that categorization. I’d say they’re more alternative or adult something or other. This music doesn’t make me think sex, drugs or rock and roll, therefore I take issue with that labeling. I do, however, this is great music. The lyrics are sometimes strange, but always interesting. There’s nothing predictable in the patterns, it’s all very original. Chris Martin’s voice isn’t particularly amazing, but he does have that something special quality – I can’t name it, I don’t think there’s a word for it.

But the boy can emote. You can feel the pain he must have been feeling when he wrote the songs, and that is what moves people to buy records like this. Feeling depressed? Whip these songs out and you’ll either feel better, or even more depressed before it’s done, because his stuff can be pretty moving. Still worth having on the iPod though, and you needn’t be miserable to appreciate it. It’s very calming and relaxing, so if you’re slightly neurotic like me and need background noise when you’re writing or working on the computer, these are wonderfully unobtrusive songs that can still make you feel good, somehow.

 
X & Y
  • Fix You

From the X & Y album, this is one of those songs for people who are “stuck in reverse” in any number of ways. It’s a sweet melody, nothing harsh, delicate piano scattered about and thoughtful lyrics expressing the empathy anyone in a depressed state would appreciate.

  • The Scientist

This one is from the album A Rush of Blood to the Head. One of my favorites, I love the lyrics here. Sounds to me like the story of a man who’s screwed up with a woman and has now realized his mistake and is ready to fix it. Lots of angst here, gotta love it.

 
A Rush of Blood to the Head
  • In My Place

Also from A Rush of Blood to the Head. I love, love, love the opening guitar melody here. It’s so damned catchy it’s amazing. Another depressing love song, lots of angst, more about how he’s screwed up – though I don’t hear him trying to fix much in this one.

  • Yellow

From the album Parachutes. I admit, I thought this was a fairly stupid song when I first heard it. It wasn’t until I saw the video that I changed my mind. Don’t ask me why, that’s just how it was. Now I love this little ditty. Still not sure why everything’s yellow, but hey, I don’t need to get it in order to like the song.

  • Clocks

This is from the Rush of Blood to the Head album. This is also the big grammy winner. And it was worth it, very catchy. Great melody, great riff, great lyrics, great phrasing. Just a great song, even if it is slightly over played.

© Stephen Dewall/Retna
  • Speed of Sound

From X & Y. Very good song asking how long it will take to get what you’re after. Well, that’s what it seems like to me. And it seems like he’s talking about getting a specific woman for the most part. Hard to tell with these pop types, you know. It’s a nice song, whatever it means.

  • Till Kingdom Come

I love this one. Also from X & Y. It’s very different from the other songs and has a darker melody. It seems to be a declaration of love, but somehow moody. It’s not cheery, yet it definitely seems to be about having fallen in love.

  • Twisted Logic

The melody here is very cool. Again, from the X & Y album. I can’t help feeling in a trance when this one is on. Just don’t pay too close attention to the lyrics, they get a little strange. Computers looking for life on earth.. gotta wonder what kind of brownies he was eating. Still, very good song.

 
Parachutes
  • Sparks

From Parachutes. Fantastically mellowing melody. Makes me feel very relaxed, even though the lyrics seem to be depressing as anything. Then again, he also seems to be saying he’s always going to take care of whomever he’s singing about. I love the bridge very nice falsetto work.

  • Daylight

Great song from A Rush of Blood to the Head album. The riff is excellent and will stay with you all day. I love the melody, love the way it sounds slightly middle eastern somehow too. That could just be my imagination, though. Lyrics don’t really make a lot of sense to me.. but hey.. who cares? It sounds good. With all these depressing love songs, etc, you have to wonder who inspired them. Was Gwyneth the woman behind all of these?

xx Isabella

Related posts:

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 4)

Dave Hogan/ Getty Images This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: For the 17th best Coldplay song of all-time, Hunter picks “42.” He notes, “You thought you might […]

Documentary on Coldplay (Part 2)

The best band in the world. Below I have linked some articles I have earlier about the search for meaning in life the band seems to involved in. Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion formed Coldplay in 1996 while going to University in London. The young band quickly established themselves in the […]

Review of New Coldplay song with video clip

I am presently involved in the counting down of the best Coldplay songs of all time, but I am also in a series here reviewing the upcoming songs on Coldplay’s new cd that will be released soon. Here is a review from Rolling Stone: Coldplay Debut new song ‘Charlie Brown’ June 6, 2011 Coldplay debuted […]

Documentary on Coldplay (Part 1, the song “Yellow” featured)

Great documentary on Coldplay. I have written a lot on Coldplay the last few years and I see something spiritually happening with the group as they continue to search for a deeping meaning in life. Coldplay Max Masters – Part 1 of 7 Uploaded by thepostbox on May 6, 2009 The ASTRA Award winning music documentary […]

“Woody Wednesday” Will Allen and Martin follow same path as Kansas to Christ?

Several members of the 70′s band Kansas became committed Christians after they realized that the world had nothing but meaningless to offer. It seems through the writings of both Woody Allen and Chris Martin of Coldplay that they both are wrestling with the issue of death and what meaning does life bring. Kansas went through […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 3)

 This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference:   Hunter has chosen the song “Viva La Vida” as his number 18 pick. Hunter noted, “The violin synth is a […]

Review of New Coldplay songs (video clip too)

Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall Published on Jun 28, 2011 by ColdplayVEVO The new single, taken from Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall EP (featuring two more new tracks). Download it from http://cldp.ly/itunescp Music video by Coldplay performing Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. (P) 2011 The copyright in this audiovisual recording is owned by […]

 

A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer (Part 8) (Schaeffer Sundays)

Part 1

Part 2

Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984.

A Christian Manifesto
by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer

This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.

We must absolutely set out to smash the lie of the new and novel concept of the separation of religion from the state which most people now hold and which Christians have just bought a bill of goods. This is new and this is novel. It has no relationship to the meaning of the First Amendment. The First Amendment was that the state would never interfere with religion. THAT’S ALL THE MEANING THERE WAS TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Just read Madison and the Spectator Papers if you don’t think so. That’s all it was!

Now we have turned it over and we have put it on its head and what we must do is absolutely insist that we return to what the First Amendment meant in the first place — not that religion can’t have an influence into society and into the state — not that. But we must insist that there’s a freedom that the First Amendment really gave. Now with this we must emphasize, and I said it, but let me say it again, we do not want a theocracy! I personally am opposed to a theocracy. On this side of the New Testament I do not believe there is a place for a theocracy ’till Jesus the King comes back. But that’s a very different thing while saying clearly we are not in favor of a theocracy in name or in fact, from where we are now, where all religious influence is shut out of the processes of the state and the public schools. We are only asking for one thing. We are asking for the freedom that the First Amendment guaranteed. That’s what we should be standing for.

Now, I come toward the close, and that is that we must recognize something from the Scriptures, and that’s why I had that Scripture read that I had read tonight. When the government negates the law of God, it abrogates its authority. God has given certain offices to restrain chaos in this fallen world, but it does not mean that these offices are autonomous, and when a government commands that which is contrary to the Law of God, it abrogates its authority.

Throughout the whole history of the Christian Church, (and again I wish people knew their history. In A Christian Manifesto I stress what happened in the Reformation in reference to all this) at a certain point, it is not only the privilege but it is the duty of the Christian to disobey the government. Now that’s what the founding fathers did when they founded this country. That’s what the early Church did. That’s what Peter said. You heard it from the Scripture: “Should we obey man?… rather than God?” That’s what the early Christians did.

Occasionally — no, often, people say to me, “But the early Church didn’t practice civil disobedience.” Didn’t they? You don’t know your history again. When those Christians that we all talk about so much allowed themselves to be thrown into the arena, when they did that, from their view it was a religious thing. They would not worship anything except the living God. But you must recognize from the side of the Roman state, there was nothing religious about it at all — it was purely civil. The Roman Empire had disintegrated until the only unity it had was its worship of Caesar. You could be an atheist; you could worship the Zoroastrian religion… You could do anything. They didn’t care. It was a civil matter, and when those Christians stood up there and refused to worship Caesar, from the side of the state, they were rebels. They were in civil disobedience and they were thrown to the beasts. They were involved in civil disobedience, as much as your brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union are. When the Soviet Union says that, by law, they cannot tell their children, even in their home about Jesus Christ, they must disobey and they get sent off to the mental ward or to Siberia. It’s exactly the same kind of civil disobedience that’s represented in a very real way by the thing I am wearing on my lapel tonight.

Every appropriate legal and political governmental means must be used. “The final bottom line”– I have invented this term in A Christian ManifestoI hope the Christians across this country and across the world will really understand what the Bible truly teaches: The final bottom line! The early Christians, every one of the reformers (and again, I’ll say in A Christian Manifesto I go through country after country and show that there was not a single place with the possible exception of England, where the Reformation was successful, where there wasn’t civil disobedience and disobedience to the state), the people of the Reformation, the founding fathers of this country, faced and acted in the realization that if there is no place for disobeying the government, that government has been put in the place of the living God. In such a case, the government has been made a false god. If there is no place for disobeying a human government, what government has been made GOD.

Caesar, under some name, thinking of the early Church, has been put upon the final throne. The Bible’s answer is NO! Caesar is not to be put in the place of God and we as Christians, in the name of the Lordship of Christ, and all of life, must so think and act on the appropriate level. It should always be on the appropriate level. We have lots of room to move yet with our court cases, with the people we elect — all the things that we can do in this country. If, unhappily, we come to that place, the appropriate level must also include a disobedience to the state.

If you are not doing that, you haven’t thought it through. Jesus is not really on the throne. God is not central. You have made a false god central. Christ must be the final Lord and not society and not Caesar.

May I repeat the final sentence again? CHRIST MUST BE THE FINAL LORD AND NOT CAESAR AND NOT SOCIETY.

Romney wants to eliminate Capital Gains Tax for everyone except those who are real job creators

Obama: Raise Taxes, Capital Gains – “For Purposes of Fairness”

Everyone knows that if you eliminate the capital gains tax then those who are wealthy will put more money into creating jobs. However, Mitt Romney feels so guilty about being wealthy that he has proposed eliminating the capital gains for everyone except for those making over 200,000 dollars.

  • OCTOBER 21, 2011, 7:08 P.M. ET

Romney’s Guilty Republican Syndrome

A leading GOP contender defines ‘rich’ as $200,000 in income. Funny. So does President Obama.

As the GOP casts about for a response to Occupy Wall Street, at least one prominent Republican isn’t sweating it. In the war over class, Mitt Romney is already waving a white flag. And therein lies one of his chief liabilities as a Republican nominee or president.

The Occupy masses don’t have a unified message, though the Democrats embracing them aren’t making that mistake. President Obama helpfully explained that the crowds in New York and elsewhere are simply expressing their “frustrations” at unequal American society. The answer to their protests is, conveniently, his own vision for the country. If wealthier Americans and corporations are just asked to pay their “fair share,” if “we can go back to that then I think a lot of that anger, that frustration dissipates,” said the president.

Associated PressGOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on the trail

This is a campaign theme in the making, and one with which Mr. Obama has already had plenty of practice. Congressional Democrats, too, see the value of pivoting off Occupy Wall Street to build an election-year class-warfare argument.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s latest answer to any spending proposal is a “millionaire’s surtax,” which he intends to make Republicans vote against ad nauseam. Labor unions, liberal activist groups—all see an Occupy opportunity to refocus the blame for a faltering economy away from President Obama and to greedy, rich America.

But here’s the other big prize, from the White House’s perspective: The man they most expect to become the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, is already running from this debate. Mr. Romney, they see, is in the full throes of Guilty Republican Syndrome.

It’s a curious illness, even if its source is clear: success. Mr. Romney is a multimillionaire, and through his own hard work. It’s a great American story, yet the Republican is paralyzed at the thought of what his opponents might do with it in a 9% unemployment economy. Democrats have already pounced on his time at Bain Capital, accusing Mr. Romney of “stripping down” companies and “laying off” employees for profit. The press has run exposés on his privileged upbringing, his “oceanfront” vacation home, his use of private jets.

Even his Republican opponents, who should know better, are lobbing anti-wealth pot shots. Herman Cain has taken to comparing his own “Main Street” business experience to Mr. Romney’s “Wall Street” past. Rick Perry is running an ad that hits Mr. Romney on his state health-care plan but ends with this bit of class: “Even the richest man can’t buy back his past.”

Having initially fought these caricatures, Mr. Romney has since begun to exhibit all the syndrome’s symptoms. He’s put forth a 59-point economic plan that eliminates the capital gains tax—but only for people who earn less than $200,000 a year. He’s declared, at a New Hampshire town hall (and at every other opportunity): “I’m not running for the rich people. Rich people can take care of themselves. They’re doing just fine.” He’s developed a form of Tourette’s that causes him to employ the term “middle class” in nearly every sentence.

Related Video

James Taranto on how Mitt Romney’s guilt as a millionaire feeds Democratic class warfare.

Mr. Romney is clearly hoping that his own passive form of class warfare will head his opponents off at the blue-collar pass. Really? The 2012 election is shaping up to be a profound choice. Mr. Obama is making no bones about his vision of higher taxes, wealth redistribution, larger government.

Mr. Romney has generally espoused the opposing view—smaller government, fewer regulations, opportunity—but only timidly. This hobbles his ability to go head to head with the president, to make the moral and philosophical case for that America. How can Mr. Romney oppose Mr. Obama’s plans to raise taxes on higher incomes, dividends and capital gains when the Republican himself diminishes the role of the “top 1%”? How can he demonstrate a principled understanding of capital and job creation when latching on to Mr. Obama’s own trademark $200,000 income cutoff?

At a town hall in Iowa Thursday, Mr. Romney took it further: “For me, one of the key criteria in looking at tax policy is to make sure that we help the people that need the help the most.”

These are the sort of statements that cause conservative voters to doubt Mr. Romney’s convictions. It also makes them doubt the ability of a President Romney to convince a Congress of the need for fundamental tax reform. If anything he owes a debt to Newt Gingrich, who in a recent debate gave him a taste of how politically and intellectually vulnerable he is on this argument, asking Mr. Romney to justify the $200,000 threshold.

Mr. Romney’s non-responsive response included five references to the “middle” class and another admonition that the “rich” are “doing just fine.” Mr. Obama can’t wait to agree, even as he shames Mr. Romney over his bank account.

Mr. Romney isn’t the first Republican to develop Guilty Syndrome, and one option would be to form a support group with, say, George H.W. Bush. A better cure might be the tonic of Ronald Reagan, who never let his own wealth get in the way of a good lower-tax argument. Reagan’s message, delivered with cheerfulness and conviction, was that he wanted everyone in American to have the opportunity to be as successful as he had been. If Mr. Romney is looking for a way to connect with an aspiring American electorate, that’s a start.

Write to kim@wsj.com

Ron Paul’s opinion of Fed

I really like Ron Paul a lot.

  • OCTOBER 20, 2011

Blame the Fed for the Financial Crisis

The Fed fails to grasp that an interest rate is a price, the price of time. Attempting to manipulate that price is as destructive as any other government price control.

By RON PAUL

To know what is wrong with the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the nature of money. Money is like any other good in our economy that emerges from the market to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. Its particular usefulness is that it helps facilitate indirect exchange, making it easier for us to buy and sell goods because there is a common way of measuring their value. Money is not a government phenomenon, and it need not and should not be managed by government. When central banks like the Fed manage money they are engaging in price fixing, which leads not to prosperity but to disaster.

WSJ’s Danny Yadron discusses Ron Paul’s proposal for $1 trillion in budget cuts with “Mean Street” host Evan Newmark. Paul’s cuts would come in large part as a result of cutting several cabinet positions. AP Photo.

The Federal Reserve has caused every single boom and bust that has occurred in this country since the bank’s creation in 1913. It pumps new money into the financial system to lower interest rates and spur the economy. Adding new money increases the supply of money, making the price of money over time—the interest rate—lower than the market would make it. These lower interest rates affect the allocation of resources, causing capital to be malinvested throughout the economy. So certain projects and ventures that appear profitable when funded at artificially low interest rates are not in fact the best use of those resources.

Eventually, the economic boom created by the Fed’s actions is found to be unsustainable, and the bust ensues as this malinvested capital manifests itself in a surplus of capital goods, inventory overhangs, etc. Until these misdirected resources are put to a more productive use—the uses the free market actually desires—the economy stagnates.

BloombergFed Chairman Ben Bernanke

The great contribution of the Austrian school of economics to economic theory was in its description of this business cycle: the process of booms and busts, and their origins in monetary intervention by the government in cooperation with the banking system. Yet policy makers at the Federal Reserve still fail to understand the causes of our most recent financial crisis. So they find themselves unable to come up with an adequate solution.

In many respects the governors of the Federal Reserve System and the members of the Federal Open Market Committee are like all other high-ranking powerful officials. Because they make decisions that profoundly affect the workings of the economy and because they have hundreds of bright economists working for them doing research and collecting data, they buy into the pretense of knowledge—the illusion that because they have all these resources at their fingertips they therefore have the ability to guide the economy as they see fit.

Nothing could be further from the truth. No attitude could be more destructive. What the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek victoriously asserted in the socialist calculation debate of the 1920s and 1930s—the notion that the marketplace, where people freely decide what they need and want to pay for, is the only effective way to allocate resources—may be obvious to many ordinary Americans. But it has not influenced government leaders today, who do not seem to see the importance of prices to the functioning of a market economy.

The manner of thinking of the Federal Reserve now is no different than that of the former Soviet Union, which employed hundreds of thousands of people to perform research and provide calculations in an attempt to mimic the price system of the West’s (relatively) free markets. Despite the obvious lesson to be drawn from the Soviet collapse, the U.S. still has not fully absorbed it.

The Fed fails to grasp that an interest rate is a price—the price of time—and that attempting to manipulate that price is as destructive as any other government price control. It fails to see that the price of housing was artificially inflated through the Fed’s monetary pumping during the early 2000s, and that the only way to restore soundness to the housing sector is to allow prices to return to sustainable market levels. Instead, the Fed’s actions have had one aim—to keep prices elevated at bubble levels—thus ensuring that bad debt remains on the books and failing firms remain in business, albatrosses around the market’s neck.

The Fed’s quantitative easing programs increased the national debt by trillions of dollars. The debt is now so large that if the central bank begins to move away from its zero interest-rate policy, the rise in interest rates will result in the U.S. government having to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in additional interest on the national debt each year. Thus there is significant political pressure being placed on the Fed to keep interest rates low. The Fed has painted itself so far into a corner now that even if it wanted to raise interest rates, as a practical matter it might not be able to do so. But it will do something, we know, because the pressure to “just do something” often outweighs all other considerations.

What exactly the Fed will do is anyone’s guess, and it is no surprise that markets continue to founder as anticipation mounts. If the Fed would stop intervening and distorting the market, and would allow the functioning of a truly free market that deals with profit and loss, our economy could recover. The continued existence of an organization that can create trillions of dollars out of thin air to purchase financial assets and prop up a fundamentally insolvent banking system is a black mark on an economy that professes to be free.

Mr. Paul, a congressman from Texas, is seeking the Republican presidential nomination

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 21)

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 21)

This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.

Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the  debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”

“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.

Westmoreland Opposes Debt Ceiling Increase

 
 
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Washington, Aug 1 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After months of debate, tonight the House of Representatives passed S.365, the Budget Control Act of 2011, to raise the debt ceiling and enact some spending reforms.  Specifically, it would reduce deficits by $917 billion over ten years by capping spending levels and in return raise the debt ceiling $900 billion.  In addition, it requires a vote on a balanced budget amendment in both the House and the Senate after October 2, 2011 but before the end of the year.  It then establishes a commission tasked with finding an additional $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts by November 23, 2011.  A second debt ceiling increase of $1.5 trillion would be permitted at the beginning of next year if the balanced budget amendment is sent to the states for ratification, or if the commission proposal includes cuts equal to or greater than $1.5 trillion and those cuts are passed into law.  If neither happens, a $1.2 trillion debt limit increase would be attached to across the board spending cuts that would equal the difference between $1.2 trillion and the cuts enacted by the commission’s proposal.  Congressman Westmoreland did not support the legislation.

“When these negotiations began in January, I made a promise that I would not vote for any legislation that didn’t include significant spending cuts and absolutely no tax increases.  Unfortunately, the final plan did not include significant enough cuts and left open the possibility for tax increases through this bipartisan commission.  In addition, it does not require a balanced budget amendment be sent to the states for ratification.  Without that constitutional restraint placed on this Congress and future Congresses, we can never guarantee real spending reforms will happen.

“House Republicans also made a promise to the American people that we would bring back an open process here in Congress.  Up until now, we have stuck with that promise.  We’ve posted legislation on the internet and given the American people and Members of Congress 72 hours to review it.  We’ve brought back open rules on appropriations bills, allowing Republican and Democrat members alike to offer amendments.  But now, after this deal was crafted behind closed doors with only a few members of leadership at the table, we were given less than 12 hours to read and review this extremely important legislation.  More time is needed to make an informed decision about legislation of this size and scope.  Unfortunately, once again, Congress has waited until the last minute to act, pushing us up against this artificial August 2nd deadline and forcing a decision on a bill it seems no one actually likes.

“I and other Republicans in the House stuck by our leadership in the hopes we could keep Cut, Cap and Balance alive and negotiate a deal we could support.  And while I know they worked hard to get the best deal possible, at the end of the day, it’s just not a deal I can support.  I commend their efforts though.  If you will recall, up until a few months ago, President Obama was still calling for a ‘clean’ debt ceiling increase and last night was still pushing for immediate tax increases on job creators.  So we came a long way during these negotiations.  Unfortunately, Senate Democrats and the White House stalled any attempt at real spending reform, resulting in this unpopular deal,” stated Westmoreland.

Coldplay gave NPR interview on Oct 22, 2011

Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall

Published on Jun 28, 2011 by 

The new single, taken from Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall EP (featuring two more new tracks). Download it fromhttp://cldp.ly/itunescp

Music video by Coldplay performing Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. (P) 2011 The copyright in this audiovisual recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd

_______________

I love Coldplay which you can tell from my past posts.

Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Saturday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET

Coldplay's fifth album, Mylo Xyloto, comes out Oct. 25.

EnlargeSarah LeeColdplay’s fifth album, Mylo Xyloto, comes out Oct. 25.
text size A A A

October 22, 2011

In 2002, when the British rock band Coldplay was on tour with its second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, frontman Chris Martin said, “I just want to make the best music of all time with my best friends.” Since that time, Coldplay, with Jonny Buckland on guitar, Guy Berryman on bass and Will Champion on drums, has become one of the biggest acts in rock.

NPR’s Scott Simon spoke with Martin and Champion on the occasion of their fifth album, Mylo Xyloto, due out this week. Martin says that, at the very least, the part about friends is still true.

“A band’s only unique thing is its chemistry, especially if none of you are prodigious players or particularly handsome,” Martin says. “The one thing you have is your uniqueness, so we hold on to that.”

Champion says he certainly wasn’t a prodigious player when he joined the group — in fact, he hadn’t intended to join at all before a happy accident convinced the other members he was the man for the job.

“My three friends were starting a band, and they needed a drummer,” Champion says. “My flatmate at the time had some drums in our house, and he was a very gifted drummer. They came over to record the drums on some early demos, and when the time came to record them, my flatmate disappeared and went to the pub. So I volunteered my services to play on one song.

“It was the most lazy and technically inept fill-in that I could have possibly managed,” he adds, laughing. “But, like Chris says … it’s just about the chemistry.”

Martin and Champion say the title Mylo Xyloto (pronounced MY-low ZY-low-toe) doesn’t have any special, secret meaning. Instead, it’s the band’s way of kicking off a new chapter in its career.

“What it is, is an attempt to have a completely fresh start, from our history and from anyone else’s recording history, by coming up with two new words,” Martin says. “Which of course, for a while, will seem a little pretentious or ridiculous. We were thinking about things like ‘Google’ and ‘Pepsi’ — those were also words that made no sense for a while. And, although it’s silly, it’s what it had to be. We now have to sort of apologize for it for a couple of months, but eventually it’ll settle into being the name of that particular group of songs.”

Though the band’s success has only increased in its 15 years together, Coldplay’s members are no strangers to negative feedback. But Martin and Champion both agree that, from time to time, even the harshest critic can make a good point.

“Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive,” Martin says. “Although it’s painful at the time, most of the things that people have said about us negatively — some of them are true and you can work on them, and the ones that you don’t agree with, you don’t work on.”

“I think it polarizes you,” Champion says. “It makes you examine your insecurities and sometimes unearth something that you secretly feel yourself. Or it makes you totally resolved to disagree with that opinion, and it reinforces your self-belief. I think it’s inevitable, and in some ways can be useful.”

_____________________

Related posts:

Will Coldplay’s 2011 album continue on spiritual themes found in 2008 Viva La Vida? (Series on Coldplay’s spiritual search, Part 2)

Views:2 By waymedia Coldplay Coldplay – Life In Technicolor ii Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the second part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the […]

Will Coldplay’s 2011 album continue on spiritual themes found in 2008 Viva La Vida? (Series on Coldplay’s spiritual search, Part 1)

Coldplay performing “Glass of Water.” Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the first part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.” Coldplay’s latest musical […]

The wait is over, Coldplay single “Every Teardrop is a waterfall”

Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Official) The new single – download it now from iTunes at http://cldp.ly/itunescp (except in the UK, where it will be released to download stores at 12.01am on Sunday June 5th). Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin / Allen / Anderson. Produced by Markus Dravs, Dan […]

Solomon, Woody Allen, Coldplay and Kansas (Coldplay’s spiritual search Part 6)

Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago: Solomon, Woody Allen, Coldplay and Kansas What does King Solomon, the movie director Woody Allen and the modern rock bands Coldplay and Kansas have in common? All four took on the issues surrounding death, the meaning of life and a possible afterlife, although they all came up with their own conclusions on […]

Three things that do not bring lasting Satisfaction, (Coldplay’s spiritual search Part 5)

Coldplay – 42 Live Coldplay perform on the french television channel W9. I wrote this article a couple of years ago: The Spiritual Search for the Afterlife Russ Breimeier rightly noted that it seems that Coldplay is “on the verge of identifying a great Truth” and their latest CD is very provocative. Many songs mention […]

Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin looking for Spiritual Answers? (Coldplay’s spiritual search Part 4)

  I wrote this article a couple of years ago. Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin looking for Spiritual Answers? Just like King Solomon’s predicament in the Book of Ecclesiastes, both of these individuals are very wealthy, famous, and successful, but they still are seeking satisfying answers to life’s greatest questions even though it seems […]

Insight into what Coldplay meant by “St. Peter won’t call my name” (Series on Coldplay’s spiritual search, Part 3)

Coldplay seeks to corner the market on earnest and expressive rock music that currently appeals to wide audiences Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Chris Martin’s view of hell. He says he does not believe in it but for some reason he writes a song that teaches that it […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 6)

  “Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 6) This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: My son Hunter Hatcher’s 15th favorite song is “trouble.” Even though […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 5)

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 5) This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: Hunter picked “Don’t Panic,” as his number 16 pick of Coldplay’s best […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 4)

Dave Hogan/ Getty Images This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: For the 17th best Coldplay song of all-time, Hunter picks “42.” He notes, “You thought you might […]

Documentary on Coldplay (Part 2)

The best band in the world. Below I have linked some articles I have earlier about the search for meaning in life the band seems to involved in. Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion formed Coldplay in 1996 while going to University in London. The young band quickly established themselves in the […]

Review of New Coldplay song with video clip

I am presently involved in the counting down of the best Coldplay songs of all time, but I am also in a series here reviewing the upcoming songs on Coldplay’s new cd that will be released soon. Here is a review from Rolling Stone: Coldplay Debut new song ‘Charlie Brown’ June 6, 2011 Coldplay debuted […]

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 2)

969 Switchfoot Interview #1 [[CC]]

Uploaded by on Aug 20, 2007

Interview with Tim Foreman and Chad Butler airing February 26th, 2007.
Discuss: cowbell, Christianity, fan connection

_______________________________________

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 2)

One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.

SwitchfootSwitchfootCourtesy of: EMI

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Switchfoot Band Members:

  • Jon Foreman – lead vocals and guitar – Birthday– Hometown – San Bernardino, CA (married)
  • Tim Foreman – bass – Birthday– Hometown – Lake Arrowhead, CA (married)
  • Chad Butler – drums – Birthday– Hometown – Amsterdam, Netherlands (married with children)
  • Jerome Fontamillas – keys and backup guitar – Birthday– Hometown – Philippines (married)
  • Andrew Shirley – guitar – Birthday (married with a daughter)

Switchfoot Bio:

Switchfoot is an alternative rock band from San Diego, CA, that was formed in 1996 by brothers Jon and Tim Foreman and their surfing buddy, Chad Butler. Though they competed in national surf championships on weekends and were good enough to earn product endorsements from equipment companies, their real passion was music. The guys formed a band (originally known as Chin Up) and they released three albums before making their major label debut in 2003.In 2001, Jerome Fontimillas joined the band playing keys, guitar, and singing background vocals.
Drew Shirley started touring with the band as a guitarist in 2003. He officially joined Switchfoot in 2005.

Switchfoot Releases:

Albums

DVDs

Switchfoot News & Notes:

Switchfoot Trivia:

  • Jon Foreman attended UC San Diego, and was on the surf team.
  • Tim Foreman has been playing bass since the fifth grade.
  • Chad Butler has a degree in History of Science, from the University of California at San Diego.
  • Jerome Fontamillas attended the Cornerstone festival thirteen times.
  • Andrew Shirley was baptized by his dad at the beach in Puerto Rico.
  • Switchfoot Lyrics Challenge

Switchfoot Awards:

Occupy Wall St. wants the 99% to scare the 1%, but the Tea Party has real solutions

Occupy Wall St. wants the 99% to scare the 1%, but the Tea Party has real solutions

Dan Mitchell is right about the “Occupy Wall St crowd”

The Arkansas Times Blog reported:

Occupy Little Rock occupies Clinton Library parking lot

Occupy Little Rock at the Clinton Presidential Park image

  • Gabe Gentry

Members of the Occupy Little Rock group have set up camp outside the Clinton Library, video contributor Gabe Gentry reports. Around 65 are gathered currently with chimineas and grills and pizzas. Thirty plan to camp and remain indefinitely, Gentry said, though a police cruiser had just arrived on the scene to idle 30 yards from the protesters around 8:15 p.m.

I’m going to go take a look as soon as I’m able. More when I’ve got it.

UPDATE: It looks like the police aren’t going to try to disperse the crowd. The protesters have a chiminea going now that they lit only after first getting permission from one of the police officers on the scene.

_________
(The blog Blue Arkansas also reported on Occupy Arkansas and the Clinton Library.) 

Some people have tried to praise Occupy Wall St, but they do have any good solutions. The most simple explanation I have seen was by a reader who commented on the story above saying maybe the 99% COULD SCARE THE 1%.

Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street

Posted by Zachary Graves

Cato’s Tom Palmer discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party in a debatewith The Nation‘s Peter Rothberg at PolicyMic:

The Tea Party has a coherent message: Stop the bailouts, stop the cronyism, and stop swindling today’s voters with empty promises and sinking future generations under mountains of debt…

What caused the crisis, the indebtedness, the unemployment, the stagnation? The culprits are state agencies and enterprises, including our Federal Reserve…

The Occupiers have the wrong address. The subprime crisis was designed in Washington, not New York…

Government debts and printing-press money will harm future generations. It’s unfair. It’s immoral. And it’s going to be solved not by occupying Phoenix, or Wall Street, or Atlanta, but by demanding that spendthrift politicians stop the bailouts and the cronyism, put the brakes on spending, and pay attention to a truly radical concept: arithmetic. Those are sound Tea Party values.

Read the full article: “Who Should Americans Support: the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street?

Zachary Graves • October 21, 2011 @ 5:05 pm             Related posts:

Steve Jobs to the President: “You’re headed for a one-term presidency,”

I have posted a lot about Steve Jobs and I have the links below after this fine aricle: Steve Jobs to Obama in 2010: ‘You’re Headed for a One-Term Presidency’ Lachlan Markay October 21, 2011 at 12:04 pm   Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder and digital pioneer, told President Obama in a 2010 meeting […]

Brawner: Occupy Wall St. crowd brings no solutions

Steve Brawner made the comment: For now, the Occupy movement doesn’t seem to be offering a lot of concrete solutions for the nation’s problems, and until it does, it won’t accomplish much. Captain America is  a loyal reader of Brawner and he pointed to a great article on the subject and here it is: Confusing […]

Republican debate Oct 18, 2011 (last part) with video clips and transcript

Republican debate Oct 18, 2011 (last part) with video clips and transcript Below are video clips and the transcript. pt 5 pt 6 pt 7 COOPER: We’re going to move on to an issue very important here in the state of Nevada and throughout the West. We have a question from the hall. QUESTION: Yeah, […]

India’s government officials smart as Steve Jobs?

I have written a lot about Steve Jobs recently and I wanted to link those posts below. Here is an interesting article for those who think that government officials are smart as those like Steve Jobs who are able to survive in the private market place and thrive. Indian Bureaucrats Are No Steve Jobs by […]

Pictures and video of Occupy Arkansas March of 10-15-11

Dan Mitchell is right about the “Occupy Wall St crowd” Here is some video and pictures of the Occupy Arkansas March of October 15, 2011 followed by an excellent article by Jason Tolbert. Steve Brawner has rightly said: For now, the Occupy movement doesn’t seem to be offering a lot of concrete solutions for the […]

Steve Jobs left conservative Lutheran upbringing behind

Steve Jobs was raised as a conservative Lutheran but he chose to leave those beliefs behind. Below is a very good article on his life. COVER STORY ARTICLE | Issue: “Steve Jobs 1955-2011″ October 22, 2011 A god of our age Who was Steve Jobs? A revered technology pioneer and a relentless innovator, the Apple […]

Crowd at Occupy Arkansas pales in comparison to annual pro-life march

Demonstrators march through the streets of Little Rock on Saturday in a protest organized by Occupy Little Rock. (John Lyon photo) Occupy Arkansas got cranked up today in Little Rock with their first march and several hundred showed up. It was unlike the pro-life marches that I have been a part of that have had […]

Occupy Wall Street vs. Steve Jobs

COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION: At Kappa Sigma house in Fayetteville. The Drew Wilson photo above went viral last night — at least in Arkansas e-mail and social media users — after the Fayetteville Flyer posted it in coverage of an Occupy Northwest Arkansas demonstration in Fayetteville. The 1 percent banner was unfurled briefly on the Kappa Sigma frat […]

Big Bad Wall St Corporations

I found this article interesting from the Wall Street Journal: OCTOBER 10, 2011 The Corporate Exec: Hollywood Demon Nazis are getting old, moviemakers don’t want to offend foreign audiences, so corporate types top the list of evil stereotypes By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN It is not surprising that pop-culture protesters are now intent on occupying Wall […]

Herman Cain tells Wall St marchers where to march

The Arkansas Times Blog reported today: Around 100 were on hand for tonight’s Occupy Little Rock planning meeting, the second since the group formed in Little Rock earlier this month. Organizers and attendees struggled with a somewhat complicated voting-by-hand-signals process, but the assembly did get some key points ironed out, including the start time and […]

These pictures are from liberal Blue Arkansas website:

Marching on in front of B o A….

From Katherine Purcell:

From Scott White: Chanting “This is no recession; this is a robbery” on march to Capitol. #occupylittlerock #ows

“Soccer Saturday” Lionel Messi’s history with video clips

This is Wilson Hatcher and some of the history of Messi that I got from wikipedia:

Lionel Andrés “Leo” Messi[3] (born 24 June 1987 in Rosario, Argentina) is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for FC Barcelona and captains the Argentina national team as a striker or winger. Considered one of the best football players of his generation,[4][5][6] Messi received several Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21, and won in 2009[7][8][9][10] and 2010.[11] His playing style and ability have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his “successor”.[12][13]

Messi began playing football at a young age and his potential was quickly identified by Barcelona. He left Rosario-based Newell’s Old Boys‘s youth team in 2000 and moved with his family to Europe, as Barcelona offered treatment for his growth hormone deficiency. Making his debut in the 2004–05 season, he broke his team record for the youngest footballer to score a league goal. Major honours soon followed as Barcelona won La Liga in Messi’s debut season, and won a double of the league and Champions League in 2006. His breakthrough season was in the 2006–07 season; he became a first team regular, scoring a hat-trick in El Clásico and finishing with 14 goals in 26 league games. Messi then had the most successful season of his playing career, the 2008–09 season, in which he scored 38 goals to play an integral part in a treble-winning campaign. This record-breaking season was then eclipsed in the following 2009–10 campaign, where Messi scored 47 goals in all competitions, equalling Ronaldo‘s record total for Barcelona. He surpassed this record again in the 2010–11 season with 53 goals in all competitions.

Messi has won five La Liga titles, three Champions League titles, scoring in two of those finals, against Manchester United in both 2009 and 2011. He was not on the pitch as Barcelona defeated Arsenal in 2006, but received a winners’ medal from the tournament. After scoring 12 goals in the 2010–11 Champions League, Messi became only the third player (after Gerd Müller and Jean-Pierre Papin) to top-score in three successive European Champion Clubs’ Cup campaigns. However, Messi is the first one to win the Champions League top scorer titles for three consecutive years after Champions League changed its format in 1992.[14]

Messi was the top scorer of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship with six goals, including two in the final game. Shortly thereafter, he became an established member of Argentina’s senior international team. In 2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play in the FIFA World Cup and he won a runners-up medal at the Copa América tournament the following year. In 2008, in Beijing, he won his first international honour, an Olympic gold medal, with the Argentina Olympic football team. At international level Messi has scored 17 goals in 61 games.

With Govt Spending at 41% of GDP should President Obama try to raise taxes?

Cato Institute: Government spending is 41% of GDP

I love the Cato Institute because they give us the facts that liberals just can’t refute. Instead of trying to raise our taxes, President Obama should be cutting spending.

American Government Spending: 41% of GDP

Posted by Chris Edwards

My good friend Kathy Ruffing at CBPP takes me to task for testifying that government spending in the United States is 41 percent of GDP, which in my view is a very high and harmful level.

Kathy says that recent U.S. spending data is “exaggerated” because of the recession, and indeed, spending has soared not only here, but in most major countries because of the unfortunate popularity of Keynesian pump-priming theories. My point was that the American smaller-government advantage eroded both during the Bush growth years and during the Obama recession years, as seen in Figure 2 of my testimony.  

Kathy noted that the OECD data I used are different than U.S. national income accounts data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Well, that’s right. Every country has quirks in the way they do their national income data. The advantage of using OECD data is that the economists at the OECD adjust for these quirks and create spending data that is comparable across countries. If Kathy has more accurate international comparisons, I’d love to see them.

Finally, Kathy says that just because American government spending divided by GDP is about 40 percent, that “doesn’t mean that government controls about 40 percent of the U.S.economy.” I don’t agree. She means that government does not produce 40 percent of gross domestic product, which is true. The broader figure of 40 or 41 percent includes not just government production but government transfers. And transfers do entail government control over resources because both the taxing and spending activities involved in transfer programs distort private sector behavior. Thus, the government misallocates resources both when it “produces” useless solar power activities in its own labs and when it subsidizes failed private solar companies.   

Anyway, thanks to Kathy for raising the important issue of the overall size of government because it is something that the policy community should focus more attention on. For data geeks, the OECD has all kinds of cross-country comparison data here. Government spending is Table 25.

Federal Spending per Household Is Skyrocketing

Everyone wants to know more about the budget and here is some key information with a chart from the Heritage Foundation and a video from the Cato Institute.

The federal government is spending more per household than ever before. Since 1965, spending per household has grown by nearly 162 percent, from $11,431 in 1965 to $29,401 in 2010. From 2010 to 2021, it is projected to rise to $35,773, a 22 percent increase.

INFLATION-ADJUSTED DOLLARS (2010)

Download

Federal Spending per Household Is Skyrocketing

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, White House Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Budget Office.

Chart 1 of 42

In Depth

  • Policy Papers for Researchers

  • Technical Notes

    The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More

  • Authors

    Emily GoffResearch Assistant
    Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
    Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor