James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 24: X&Y

On last year’s A-Z I had to cheat a little bit for X by including XTRMNTR by Primal Scream. The main reason this was cheating was because last year’s retrospective was meant to be 90s music and that particular album was released in the year 2000. It was very much at the beginning of the year though and was, effectively, only a month away from being a genuinely 90s album.

However minor a transgression that may have been, I do find myself paying a bit of a high price this year, because of course that same album would have been an excellent choice for this year’s 00s A-Z. But I used it last year so I can’t use it again.

Which means I have had to go to a very dark place indeed for ‘X’…

X is for X&Y

At the beginning of the noughties, Coldplay represented everything that was wrong with British guitar music as far as I was concerned. They may have been popular and critically acclaimed but they were, in my humble opinion, a bit dull.

All that changed when they released their third album X&Y.

Wait.

No, it didn;t.

I still thought they were insipid and bland. I had no interest in them whatsoever.

But then something did happen. Bob Geldof announced a follow-up to Live Aid. This time it was called Live 8 because it was…erm…something to do with the G8 summit and making poverty history.

That’s right, in 2005 all the popular music acts of the day got together and made poverty history. Which was brilliant because poverty was a bit rubbish and it’s good that it doesn’t exist anywhere and in any form now. Thank goodness for the power of celebrities.

Anyway, Live Aid, whether it entirely achieved what it set out to achieve, was definitely a seminal moment in the history of popular music. Live 8, as it turns out, was not.

But it did happen and I had a ticket to the London bit of it.

I saw quite a few good bands that day but for some reason Coldplay are the band I remember the most vividly. It turns out they’re pretty good live and I quite enjoyed their set, even if I derive no enjoyment from any of their albums when I hear them in any other context.

X&Y had only just been released when Live 8 happened. And Fix You was getting a fair bit of airplay, although it was yet to be released as a single. It was the song they finished the set with on that day. So if I have to include a Coldplay song on my blog, it might as well be that one.