Why Noel Gallagher happily admits Coldplay are genius: “The best band out there”
If you were to start your music fandom from a complete blank slate in 2025, there would be two easy reference points to use as your guide: Oasis and Coldplay.
Both existing at two separate ends of the spectrum, they provide perfect goalposts for you to shoot your brand of fandom. Oasis would provide the most obvious choice of band for you to pick if you wanted to design yourself a bulletproof persona of cool. One that doesn’t sway too far from the cultural mainstream, but will similarly earn you culture points from anyone truly tuned in.
Then, if you wanted to double down on that narrative and prove your worth to your fellow Britpop lovers, you could flippantly express one swift sentence. Something as simple as “Do you know what? I properly hate Coldplay” would endear you to the hearts of most high-brow music fans the world over.
Because, rightly or wrongly, the globetrotting band have become whipping boys in subcultural narrative. To many, they epitomise the brand of cringeworthy positivity that alternative bands like Oasis seek to push back against. The technicoloured pop aesthetic they’ve adopted in modern years as a band has been used against them by bastions of counterculture, and they have subsequently become the uncoolest band on the planet.
While some of this contemporary narrative is fair, it does criminally overlook at least one of their albums, which shouldn’t have been bundled into this sweeping generalisation. Their 2000 debut album Parachutes was a unique take on folk-tinged indie that genuinely foregrounded their songwriting prowess, as opposed to wrapping it up in bubblegum excess.
This early spell in Coldplay’s career meant they were touted as Britain’s next great alternative band, which is a prophecy we all know didn’t quite materialise. Instead, they achieved something far more commercially successful but arguably more reputationally damaging.
But their reputation can be salvaged in modern audiences, particularly if they are all pointed towards a quote Noel Gallagher delivered in 2004. “The best band out there is Coldplay, but we’re not really in competition with them,” he explained before conceding something quite unexpected. “Chris Martin is a fucking genius as far as I’m concerned. But all in all, this has been a fucking disappointing year for bands’ second albums.”
Oasis was referring to Coldplay’s sophomore record, A Rush Of Blood To The Head, which may have been the last project to have received such acclaim from the gruff Mancunian, as their follow-up record, X&Y, set out the stall through which their modern brand of unfiltered pop could flourish.
As ever, Noel’s opinion changed as quick as Coldplay’s creative approach, and it didn’t take long until he was spraying Martin with the sort of abuse we would expect. When Martin was campaigning for a fairer streaming service in 2015, Gallagher’s view on Martin’s artistry had clearly altered.
“They were like, ‘We’re going to fucking save the music business’. And I’m just sitting there, thinking, ‘You might want to write a decent chorus for a fucking start” Gallagher said, in true fashion. He continued, “Never mind fucking royalties and the ‘power of music’. Write a tune. Fucking start with that.”
It’s unknown whether Gallagher’s 2004 praise was actually genuine or the byproduct of a drug-addled episode, but either way, it’s in black and white for all of history to see now. However, it’s not like he’s ever cared about publicly contradicting himself.
