Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

Today's album review is....
     Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (2011)

Today's album review is none other than the latest Coldplay album, "Mylo Xyloto".
It is Coldplay's fifth studio album.

Before I begin, let's have some background on the band.

Coldplay was formed in 1996 by its lead singer, Chris Martin,  and lead guitarist, Jonny Buckland at the University College London, and named their band "Pectoralz". Then, their bassist Guy Berryman joined, and changed their name to "Starfish". Then Will Champion joined as their drummer and they changed their name to Coldplay.

Now, let's learn about the album, Mylo Xyloto. The album was inspired by graffiti artwork in the 70s subway cars, and so they absorbed their album artwork and theme from that idea. Then, the title was given by a graffiti tag "Xylophone", which they shortened to "Xyloto". Then Mylo became the beginning of it and the name was born.
The album has 14 tracks, but to me, their is really less than 14. I'll explain about that later.

1.	"Mylo Xyloto"	0:43
2.	"Hurts Like Heaven"	4:02
3.	"Paradise"	4:37
4.	"Charlie Brown"	4:45
5.	"Us Against the World"	3:59
6.	"M.M.I.X."	0:49
7.	"Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall"	4:00
8.	"Major Minus"	3:30
9.	"U.F.O."	2:17
10.	"Princess of China" (with Rihanna)	3:59
11.	"Up in Flames"	3:13
12.	"A Hopeful Transmission"	0:33
13.	"Don't Let It Break Your Heart"	3:54
14.	"Up with the Birds"                   3:45

So, the first track is titled "Mylo Xyloto", but to me, this really isn't a track. It's more of a song-prefix.
You see, at the end of the song, it connects into the next song, "Hurts like Heaven". And the band does this cool effect in multiple tracks. This kind of track-connection is like Pink Floyd's hit album "Dark Side of The Moon", how some of those tracks connect.
Anyways, this is a great 0:46 second track, of a symphony of the xylophone, piano, and a bunch of other instruments, then immediately connects into the next track,

"Hurts Like Heaven". This song really does match the style of its prefix. The synth is great, piano is amazing, the chorus is great, then the finale is amazing.

Then comes the beautiful orchestral-techno masterpiece "Paradise". It starts with violin and cello, then comes all the great techno instruments bashing into a symphony. Then the lyrics tell a story, of a girl, who wanted to run away, and live life to the fullest.

Then comes Charlie Brown. The intro, was strange, like a baby murmuring to itself. Then, the great guitar comes in, and the vocals come, and even though you were weirded out by the baby's voice, the guitars and vocals make up for it in the end.

Then comes our next 2/1 tracks... M.M.I.X and Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. These are some of the tracks that connect into the next one. M.M.I.X is synth and a little drop of piano....turning into a full body of synth....that follows into the next track, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. This song is a great lyric-vocal collaboration, with a musical surprise every turn, then when finale comes, and you become sad its over. These were about my favorite songs from the album.

The track "U.F.O"'s title may deceive you into thinking its a high-techno alien-style song, but you are wrong. Its a regular-paced beautiful acoustic song. Just when it ends, a synth riff comes on, leading into our next song,

"Princess of China". This song is a duet-argument style thing  between Chris Martin and Rihanna. It has a great beginning of synth and guitar, then the lyric argument comes up with great drum beat. It was an amazing duet.

Then "A Hopeful Transmission" connects to "Don't let it Break your Heart".

Then the beautiful, piano-acoustic finale of the album "Up with the Birds". It was truly a masterpiece of heart stopping lyrics and great guitar-piano cooperation.

Thank you for reading, today's overall score is 3.8 Stars.

Source(s) for my info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mylo_Xyloto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldplay