Coldplay haters get a life...or should that be viva la vida

As the British band prepare to headline Glastonbury for a record-breaking fifth time, Mark Beaumont assesses their legacy and questions why some critics are still so disdainful

- Mark Beaumont

It was the kohl-eyed cultural assassin Super Hans who struck the killer blow. “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis,” PeepShow’s  resident joker infamously told Jez in one 2005 episode of the sitcom. “You can’t trust people.” Granted, he was arguing that Jez’s new pub should be themed as a working laundrette and not serve lager, but this wild illogic acted as judge, jury and saucer-eyed executioner on the perceived credibility of Chris Martin and his three band members who, despite popular misconception, also have names.

In the two decades since, from pub to panel show, Coldplay have become shorthand for dull, mimsy musical Evian: industry bigwig Alan McGee dubbed them “bedwetters”; John Oliver likened their listening experience to “sex with the lights on” (which is better, right?). More than any other band of their era, however, Coldplay make the debate surrounding their so-called “coolness” seem about as pointless and ludicrous as a Tory 2024 manifesto.

To this day, proving that the human mind is a baffling cosmos where logic goes to die, “people” have lauded the jubilant poptimist breakthrough of Dua Lipa headlining Glastonbury and, in the very same tweet, had a crack at her fellow, equally pop headliners.