Fifteen years ago today, Coldplay released “Paradise.” It still sucks. The one where Chris Martin sings “para-para-paradise” on a loop like a GPS stuck recalculating. It was the second single off Mylo Xyloto, an album title that sounds like a prescription sedative and does roughly the same for the listener. The video featured a man in an elephant costume escaping a zoo and turning up at a concert in South Africa. That’s not a metaphor I’m reading into it. That is the literal plot. Fifty million YouTube views and counting, because apparently the bar was in hell and Coldplay brought a shovel.
Here’s what you should listen to instead, five tracks from 2011 that were actually worth the bandwidth:
- Jamie xx - “Far Nearer” (YouTube): Steel pans over bass weight. Pitchfork named it Best New Track and for once they were right.
- Rustie - “Ultra Thizz” (YouTube): Maximalist Glasgow insanity off Glass Swords. Every synth in this thing sounds like it’s trying to escape the song.
- SBTRKT feat. Little Dragon - “Wildfire” (YouTube): UK bass at its sharpest. The vocal sits so far inside the beat it becomes another drum.
- Nicolas Jaar - “Space Is Only Noise If You Can See” (YouTube): A 21-year-old made the weirdest electronic record of the decade on his laptop. While Chris Martin was rhyming “paradise” with “paradise.”
- Flux Pavilion - “Bass Cannon” (YouTube): Dubstep that charted in the UK and broke subwoofers for sport. The drop alone outperforms Coldplay’s entire discography.