Maps of Music

Mylo Xyloto (2011)

Where the lyrics of Mylo Xyloto take you, and where it was really made.

The album's main studio began as a disused bakery in Primrose Hill, the same place where Coldplay had recorded much of their previous album, Viva la Vida.

Key places

Recording HQ in a disused bakery (2011)

Recording site The Bakery — Coldplay set up a recording HQ at a disused bakery in Primrose Hill, North London. Overdubs and comping for the album were recorded here, while most live takes were done at the new studio nearby. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Studio for live recording (2011)

Recording site The Beehive — The Beehive is a new studio near the original recording place, used for much of the album's live recording and live takes. Rik Simpson described it as a large room. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Mylo Xyloto is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Coldplay
• Released by Parlophone on 19 October 2011 in Japan and 24 October 2011 in the rest of the world
• The band's first concept album and also a thematic rock opera
• The story is set on the planet Silencia, where a war against sound and colour is fought
• Silencia is controlled by a totalitarian government led by Major Minus, who uses media and propaganda to rule the population
• The protagonist Mylo Xyloto is a silencer, a soldier hunting sparkers, people who use light and energy to make sparks similar to graffiti
• Mylo meets Fly, the sparker most wanted by Major Minus, and learns of his own sparker abilities and his link to the Car Kids

Background

• The band worked closely with producer Brian Eno after their successful collaboration on Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008)
• The band had wanted the album to be more acoustic and more intimate than its predecessor
• They first tried to make two records, a stripped-down album and an electric one already called Mylo Xyloto, before deciding to combine them
• Drummer Will Champion said the band could not focus on more than one thing at once
• The album was originally set for a December 2010 release as a decade-ender, but was postponed to 2011
• Chris Martin said the album was based on a love story with a happy ending

Recording

• Coldplay set up a recording HQ at a disused bakery in Primrose Hill, North London, in November 2006
• Part of the album was recorded at the same place, but in a new studio nearby called The Beehive
• Most live recording and live takes were done at The Beehive, while overdubs and comping were done at The Bakery
• Rik Simpson, one of the producers, described The Beehive as a large room
• Recording for the album was finished in September 2011

Cover

• The artwork was revealed on 12 August 2011
• The graffiti-inspired design was created with long-time collaborators Tappin Gofton and British street artist Paris
• The band and Paris painted a graffiti wall in nine parts
• The front cover shows a picture of three parts of the wall, and the whole wall appears in the centre of the CD booklet

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in 1997 by Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland and Guy Berryman, who met at University College London.
• Will Champion joined in January 1998; the group first went by Big Fat Noises and Starfish before settling on Coldplay.
• Signed with Parlophone in 1999 after the EP Safety (1998) was financed by lifelong friend Phil Harvey.

Members

• Chris Martin: lead vocals, piano, keyboards, guitars.
• Jonny Buckland: guitars, keyboards, backing vocals.
• Guy Berryman: bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals.
• Will Champion: drums, percussion, piano, backing vocals.
• Phil Harvey: manager, later creative director, often credited as a fifth member.

Career

• Debut Parachutes (2000) won a Brit Award and a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album; A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002) and X&Y (2005) followed.
• Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) won a Grammy for Best Rock Album and topped charts in over 30 countries.
• Music of the Spheres (2021) included My Universe with BTS, the first British group song to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Over 170 million records sold worldwide; the Music of the Spheres World Tour became one of the highest-grossing tours of all time.

Reception

At release

• The album received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its uplifting tone and new electronic sound
• Some critics found the material bombastic and overproduced
• Metacritic gives a weighted average of 65 out of 100 based on 39 reviews
• Q's Simon Goddard gave a five-star review
• Rolling Stone's Josh Eells cited it as the band's most ambitious effort and called it a bear-hug record for a bear-market world
• The Guardian's Alexis Petridis gave a mixed review, judging the storyline as incoherent
• Entertainment Weekly's Melissa Maerz read the album as an attempt by the group to sound less like themselves
• AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the band had embraced their schoolboy selves and were singing songs of love and good cheer

Reappraisal

• On the tenth anniversary in October 2021, Coldplay announced that Paris had created a special piece to celebrate the album
• The fictional universe of the album inspired the band's later album Music of the Spheres (2021)

Records

• Charted at number one in 34 countries, with over 1.1 million copies sold in its first week worldwide
• In the United Kingdom it debuted at number one with 208,343 copies in its first week
• It set a one-week digital sales record in the UK with 83,000 copies
• In the United States it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 447,411 copies
• It was Coldplay's third album to debut at number one in the US
• It was the best-selling rock album in the United Kingdom in 2011, with over 908,000 copies
• The album has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide
• Three Grammy nominations at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012 went to Paradise and Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall, and two more in the following year went to the album and Charlie Brown

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Coldplay first planned two separate records, an acoustic one and an electric one already called Mylo Xyloto, before combining them into one album
• Chris Martin said the names of the album's characters, the boy Mylo and the girl Xyloto, are the source of the title
• Another meaning the frontman gave was that the name could be a graffiti tag for the band, linking xylophone with xyloto
• Paris was first brought in as a teacher for graffiti techniques but stayed on the project to the end and produced part of the final work
• Mylo Xyloto was also adapted into a six-part comic book series published by Bongo Comics
• The single Paradise reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first UK number-one single of 2012

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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