X&Y

X&Y is the third album by British rock band Coldplay, first released in various countries in early June 2005. The first single from the album, "Speed of Sound", was released on CD on May 23, 2005. The single first premiered on BBC Radio 1 with Steve Lamacq on the evening of April 18, 2005. "Speed of Sound" was released on several online music stores on the 18th, and was released on the iTunes Music Store on the 19th. The album debuted at the top of the UK Album Chart, with 464,471 over-the-counter first week sales to place second all-time behind Oasis' Be Here Now, which moved 695,761 units in its 1997 release. It also became the band's first US chart-topper, selling 737,000 units in its first week of release.

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According to lead singer Chris Martin, the title X&Y is based on the ups and downs of his everyday life. Martin says "My whole day is a mixture of optimism and pessimism in its most extreme forms. And that?s what X&Y is to me. It?s two sides. I like the fact they?re very strong letters, very clear." http://www.nme.com/news/111874.htm

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X&Y is influenced by European electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, as well as 70s electronica from the likes of David Bowie and Brian Eno. Coldplay received permission from Kraftwerk to use the main riff from "Computer Love" for the track "Talk", while Eno played backing synthesizer on the track "Low". The album's hidden track, "'Til Kingdom Come", was originally written by the band for Johnny Cash, but Cash passed away before he could record the song.

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The album's ambiguous cover art was designed by Tappin Gofton (aka Mark Tappin and Simon Gofton), who created the cover for The Chemical Brothers' latest release, Push the Button. The coloured blocks encode the title of the album, X&Y with ITA2, a 5-bit alphanumeric encoding used by telegraphs. The CD booklet contains the ITA2-encoded alphabet, presented with the X&Y colour motif http://www.insomniac.utvinternet.com/xy6.jpg. The final page of the booklet contains the slogan "Make Trade Fair", using the same encoded alphabet http://www.insomniac.utvinternet.com/xy8.jpg.

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Album: Album may mean:...

British: The word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details on the development and use of the word Britain....

Rock band: Rock group (or later rock band ) is a generic name to describe a group of musicians specializing in a particular form of electronically amplified music. Deriving its name from the musical style which was its immediate progenitor, rock and roll, the type of music played by rock groups has its roots d...

X&Y related Images and Photos (experimental)

Tom, Dick & Harry	Starsky & Hutch	Oasis - Amp	Oasis - Amp
Hard, Fast & Beautiful	Avatar AMP Suit	Ready Willing & Able (Keeler)	Batman B&W Motion Comics Col.
Keychain Speaker Amp	Dale Earnhardt Jr., Amp Hoodie - Black	Dale Earnhardt Jr., Amp Hoodie - Green	Wheeler & Woolsey Double Feature-Girl Crazy/Peach O'Reno