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Coldplay are hosting a video contest for their Viva La Vida track “Lost?” with the winner being awarded VIP treatment at the band’s concert in London this December. The band encourages fans to use creativity and any medium (animation, photography, stop-motion, etc.) in the contest. “Don’t use anyone else’s material (i.e. Please don’t splice together your favourite scenes from Spider-Man 3 and Mean Girls),” the band says in the contest guidelines, and “don’t bother with Coldplay live footage or photographs as there’s enough of that on YouTube already.” Entrants are asked to post their videos on YouTube. Chris Martin and gang will judge the finalists before picking a winner on December 5th. And what’s at stake? (more…)

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Coldplay’s Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends is barely two months old and already the band are aiming for a 2009 release for their next album. The sessions the band had with producer Brian Eno were so “incredibly fruitful,” a source at Coldplay’s label EMI said, that they recorded more music than a single album could house. “The majority of the follow-up is already in the can, though they will have to go back into the studio at some point to add a few more songs,” the source told the U.K.’s Telegraph. So why the rush? (more…)

Always democratic, Coldplay revealed to their fans this weekend not one but two videos for the abridged title track of their new album, “Viva La Vida.” In the Hype Williams-directed video above, Coldplay stick with the motif they showcased in that iTunes commercial you’ve no doubt saw a million times leading up to the album’s release, with each member of the band performing in front of what looks like either computer screensavers, cloud formations or really muddy lava lamps. The “official alternative” video, directed by “Heart-Shaped Box” and Control visionary Anton Corbijn, casts Chris Martin as a king, walking around from landmark to picturesque landmark with a framed copy of Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” (Viva La Vida’s album cover) tucked under his arm. Shot in a film stock that echoes ’70s porn, Martin searches for a place to hang his painting, ultimately finding solace with the rest of Coldplay on what could be the same beach where the band filmed their “Yellow” video. Check out Corbijn’s version after the jump. (more…)

Having already recruited Santogold for their Viva La Vida tour, Coldplay will now employ a YouTube contest that will allow unknown groups the opportunity to be an opening act for one of the biggest bands in the world. The contest is run in conjunction with radio stations in six markets: Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Philadelphia and San Jose, CA. In each case, potential warm-up acts are asked to upload their videos onto YouTube, where a panel of judges comprised of radio station employees will watch all the clips and whittle the nominees down to fifteen. After that, fan voting reduces the finalists to three. Coldplay will watch the final trio and decide which band wins. The prize: 20 minutes of stage time as Coldplay’s opening act, $2,000 and ten tickets to the concert. To enter the contest, check out Coldplay’s tour page.

[Photo: Getty]

Could Chris Martin be joining Lil Wayne in saving the music industry? One week after Weezy’s Tha Carter III sold 423,000 in its first day of sales on its way to a platinum debut, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida posted similarly big numbers Tuesday, selling 316,000 copies. Viva is expected to usurp TC3 as the SoundScan king next week on its way to expected sales in the 700-750,000 range. If Coldplay can hit that number, it will be the first time since 2005 that albums with sales over 700,000 topped the charts in consecutive weeks. 50 Cent’s The Massacre single-handedly last conquered that feat. Coldplay’s last album, X&Y, sold 737,000 in its debut week in 2005. Coldplay’s big Tuesday is the third-best since SoundScan launched their Building Chart last year, with only Kanye West and Lil Wayne faring better. Viva La Vida also broke the record for most iTunes downloads in a single day, previously held by Jack Johnson. To read Chris Martin’s journey in creating Viva La Vida, check out an excerpt from his Rolling Stone cover story below.

• The Rolling Stone Interview: Chris Martin

[Photo: Getty]

At last night’s free Coldplay show in London, frontman Chris Martin joked that his band’s song “God Put a Smile on Your Face” sounded an awful lot like Radiohead’s “2 + 2 = 5.” “Sorry, we shouldn’t be talking about plagirism,” he joked. “Ignore that!”

In fact, Coldplay has been chased by people accusing them of lifting liberally from Radiohead, something that Martin owns up to in the current issue of Rolling Stone. “Sometimes I feel like they cleared a path with a machete, and we came afterward and put up a strip mall,” he says. “I would still give my left ball to write anything as good as OK Computer.”

The line can certainly be drawn to a handful of their songs (especially from their first two albums), but can the same thing be said of their videos? Click below for Rock Daily’s investigation into Coldplay’s complete video library and just how much they’ve been influence by Radiohead’s visual output.

• The Complete Coldplay Video Guide

• Coldplay Showcase Viva La Vida at Free London Show

Did Coldplay steal the melody of their iPod commercial-fronting single “Viva La Vida” from a Brooklyn indie band? That’s what the Creaky Boards are alleging in a new YouTube clip. According to the band, “We were flattered when we thought we saw Chris Martin in the crowd” when the band performed at a CMJ showcase in October 2007. In the side-by-side comparison of the two tracks, the verses do seem a tad similar, though according to a Coldplay spokesperson, “Viva La Vida” was actually written and demoed in March 2007, well before Martin was supposed to have seen the Creaky Boards perform (Coldplay’s people also added that Martin was not in New York that weekend). Ironically enough, the name of the tune the band claims Martin nicked is “The Songs I Didn’t Write.” The Creaky Boards singer seems to be okay with it all, saying “I wish Coldplay the best of luck. If they ever want to collaborate, I’ve got some microphones we could use in my bedroom.”

Rolling Stone Associate Editor Brian Hiatt spent seven hours over the course of two days talking to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin for this issue’s cover story. Click above for how Bill O’Reilly inspired Martin and why he’s not bothered by the Coldplay diss in The 40-Year Old Virgin.

• The Jesus of Uncool — Chris Martin: The Rolling Stone Interview

Coldplay’s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends stands to be one of the biggest albums of the year, and fittingly, frontman Chris Martin graces the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, which hits newsstands today. Martin is a rare, complicated rock star, reluctant to dwell too much in the spotlight but eager to put his fame and influence to good use. Click below for an excerpt from the interview with Martin, including how he thinks the election of Barack Obama would change the world, and also check out the gallery of live photos from Coldplay’s career.

• The Jesus of Uncool: Chris Martin — The Rolling Stone Interview

• Coldplay Live: Concert Photos From Throughout the Band’s Career

[Photo: Nadav Kander]

With their Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends on the horizon, Coldplay announced the first U.S. leg of a massive world tour that’ll see the band play roughly 150 shows. The jaunt, thankfully truncated to the “Viva La Vida Tour,” will kick off at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center on June 29th and extend beyond the last of the announced dates, a November 22nd concert in Salt Lake City, Utah. Additionally, there’s that free concert at Madison Square Garden Chris Martin and the boys are playing on June 23rd, to which you can win tickets by going the band’s official Web site. To see all the announced shows thus far for the tour, keep reading. (more…)

Coldplay refurbished their website this weekend as they prepare for the release of their new album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. First, Chris Martin and the gang will allow fans to download first single “Violet Hill” for free starting tomorrow at 12:15pm U.K. time (7:15am EST.) The single will only be available for free for one week. Additionally, Coldplay will play two free concerts, including one on June 23rd at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Details on how to get tickets to the MSG show and the free show at London’s Brixton Academy will be announced soon. The band also revealed the album art for Viva La Vida: a defaced version of Eugene Delacroix’s 1830 masterpiece Liberty Leading the People with half the album title scrawled in white graffiti.

On a Saturday night in late February, Coldplay are in their North London headquarters, listening to mixes of new songs. After spending months writing and recording with producer Brian Eno, the band is now painstakingly wrapping up its fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death And All His Friends. A few weeks ago, Eno jetted off to work on U2’s new disc, leaving Coldplay to mix, record overdubs and argue over which tracks to include. “I heard a Bono quote once that said, ‘Bands shouldn’t break up over money, they should break up over the track listing,’” says frontman Chris Martin. “Nothing could be more pertinent at this point.” (more…)

Coldplay’s fourth album, due out on June 17th, will be called Viva la Vida. Singer Chris Martin chose it after seeing the phrase, which means “long live life,” on a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who endured polio, a broken spine, and chronic pain for decades. “She went through a lot of shit, of course, and then she started a big painting in her house that said ‘Viva la Vida,’” says Martin. “I just loved the boldness of it.”

Of course, Frida Kahlo will not be the first name that jumps to most peoples’ minds when they hear the phrase. “Everyone thinks it comes from Ricky Martin, which is fine. I have absolute respect,” says the singer, who gave Coldplay its original name, Pectoralz, and named his children Apple and Moses. “I’ve been through this before, naming something or someone and everyone saying that ‘That’s a terrible name’. But then saying, ‘Well, fuck you, that’s what it’s called, and I’ll be proved to be right eventually’. So when Viva la Vida came along, I was kind of annoyed because I’m going to have to try and convince everybody of this, but it just felt right.” Check back later this week for the full report from Coldplay’s studio sessions for Viva la Vida, and for more insight into some songs that are slated to appear on the record, click here.

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Rolling Stone’s Evan Serpick recently visited Coldplay in their northern London recording studio where they’re hammering away at their still-untitled fourth album, due in May. The band teamed up with legendary producer Brian Eno and pointedly tried to remove all outside influences this time around. “We felt like the first three albums were a trilogy, and we finished that,” says guitarist Johnny Buckland. “So we wanted to do something different.”

“Whether or not it’s good, we certainly started to use more colors,” says frontman Chris Martin. “It’s impossible to please everybody, and it took us a while to learn that.” The tracks Serpick heard were considerably rougher than songs on Coldplay’s past albums, and tackled darker lyrical themes, as well. For more from the band and an early look at nine songs that may appear on the record, click here.

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• What’s Next for Coldplay, Spice Girls Label? EMI’s Guy Hands Speaks Out
• Coldplay To Exit EMI?
• Coldplay Post Curious New-Album Update

[Photo: Getty]