March 31, 2005 11:42

'TALK' DRIVES COLDPLAY CRAZY!

The band leave it to the 11th hour to decide on the final tracklisting for ‘X&Y’…

Photo Gallery: Coldplay

COLDPLAY have left it to the last minute to decide the final tracklisting of ‘X&Y’ - with the band unable to decide whether to include the song ’TALK’ after struggling with its recording for months.

The song was one of the tracks NME.COM heard last year while the band were in a London studio working on ‘X&Y’, released on June 6. The version NME.COM heard borrowed the riff from [a][/a]’s ‘Computer Love’, building to a completely new song.

However, during the difficult recording sessions which have seen the band scrap huge amounts of material, the song was one of the ones that caused most difficulty – to the point that it was completely left of early versions of the record sent out to their British label. At one point it was being talked about as a potential comeback single.
NME.COM understands that now the group have found a mix they’re happy with, but have been unable to decide what to do with it.

Chris Martin told NME.COM: “From that version (NME.COM heard) we went and did a whole other version of it. A whole other song. What happened with the song ‘Talk’ is that it was all going great and then someone said ‘That should be the first single’ and we all just freaked out and scrapped it all. I hate choosing singles, it’s so hard. We’ve just mixed it and it sounds great. I think we’ve had such pain getting to that place, I’m not sure anyone quite knows what to do with it anymore. When we heard it mixed properly, it sounded mega.”

Chris also told NME.COM that the title of the album is inspired by the extreme nature of his day-to-day life. He continued: “It’s a cooler way of saying ying and yang. If I’d called it ying and yang we’d have been in trouble! 10% would walk away. But another 20% would come. We’d be a lot bigger in the Far East. My whole day is a mixture of optimism and pessimism in its most extreme forms. And that’s what ‘X&Y’ is to me. It’s two sides. I like the fact they’re very strong letters, very clear. Very hard lines, it looks great when you write it down. And it looks great when you see the artwork. It’s fucking amazing. I can say that because I didn’t do it.”

Coldplay’s next show is when they headline California’s Coachella Festival. From there, they return to the UK in June for an expected Glastonbury headline slot on June 25, followed by a massive arena tour.

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