No Coldplay: Reassessing Old Maxims

When you walk into Revolver—the popular pub and live music venue in central Taipei, around the corner from the National Theatre and near Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, two of the city’s most identifiable landmarks—what you’ll first notice are probably the busy walls. There are paintings, posters, prints, trinkets and souvenirs, everywhere you look. T-shirts and tote bags hang on mannequin torsos between the tables. The aesthetic is maximalist, kitschy, ironic. There is a shrine to David Bowie, pop-art renderings of Ché Guevara, and Thai royal family memorabilia. 

But the thing that has stood out, virtually unchanged, since the pub’s beginnings almost fifteen years ago, is a small rectangular sign behind the bar, above a row of backlit liquor bottles for cocktails, below a wall-mounted deer head and an assortment of random tchotchkes on a shelf. It’s a black sign with silver writing and two simple words: “No Coldplay”.

These two words are now synonymous with Revolver and have become a kind of unofficial motto. They are emblazoned on their menus, on the merch they sell, on their social media accounts, even on the food menus of other establishments run by the bar’s owners, like the British gastropub Fumu.

The phrase is direct, unequivocal, and, as a patron, you immediately get it. But it’s still somewhat vague. Is it a clarification? An order? Are they saying you will not hear any Coldplay through the speakers? That you shouldn’t request any Coldplay songs? That you will not see any hints of Coldplay in their phantasmagoric array of visual imagery?

In a sense, what the phrase expresses is more of a statement of purpose. It says, at this establishment, what we want and what we’re about is the opposite of what Coldplay is about.

Revolver ≠ Coldplay.

I must admit, I hadn’t listened to Coldplay in about as long as I had been away from Revolver (i.e. more than ten years). At this point, I wasn’t sure what either of them were about anymore. 

I started to wonder whether, in 2025, a quarter of a century into the band’s career and a decade and a half into the venue’s existence, that statement was still accurate. If Revolver still ≠ Coldplay.

After all, both of them were still at it. Still in business, still active, still flourishing. By whatever measure is appropriate for a small live music venue and a chart-topping modern rock band, both had been wildly successful. To many people, they had become venerated institutions with long histories. So it raised a simple question in my mind:

Has Revolver become the Coldplay of Taipei music venues?

The Underground Resurrected on the Ground? 

As I mentioned, I hadn’t been to Revolver since I had left Taipei in 2013, but I finally made it back when I went for a visit in December. I spent a number of evenings there: I attended three gigs and one free festival—celebrating the venue’s 14th anniversary—that was so packed that I only lasted a couple of songs upstairs before heading back down to the bar. I went there one afternoon for a quick beer to catch up with friends, and also spent a long semi-regrettable night arguing nonsense with redpilled randos. 

I tried to look back on my memories of the place, given that I had been there at its very inception. In fact, I remember it before it was even Revolver, when it was a failing bar called The Source. When I first moved to Taipei, I was working in that neighbourhood and I remember the sight: an empty watering hole on a lonely corner near some nondescript government buildings. A big Carlsberg sign on the awning, tacky indoor decor, gaudy lighting, serving only one type of lager on tap, letting customers choose their own music, probably by plugging in their iPods. 

Eventually, the site got taken over and renovated, the lighting was improved, bright red paint and assorted tchotchkes went up on the walls, with a proper sound system set up on the second floor for live shows. In its early days, the pub also had a beloved mascot: a brown-and-white mutt with a bandana around his neck, named Hendrix. He was long and lean, and spent more time marauding the nearby streets than in the cramped bar, but would always make it back eventually, springing from the shadows, upright and alert, with an ear raised, as if he’d just completed an important mission and was ready for another.

The bar has definitely been spruced up since those early days, in almost every way. The service is more professional. Drinks are ordered and change supplied with military precision by a well-coordinated crew. The sound quality of the live room is also much better; the space has been acoustically treated, the equipment upgraded and the stage raised.

Revolver emerged as another esteemed Taipei venue was in its last throes. Underworld (地下社會) had been the city’s premiere dive bar/small live venue since the late 1990s. It was in a neighbourhood nearby, only a couple of stops away on the metro, and was a favourite of students, hipsters, scene kids, art freaks and punks alike. Every great indie band had started there and many would return, even after they had outgrown the place.

Underworld was also, and I say this as a frequent patron and a massive fan, a bit of a shithole.  Dark, small, cramped, reeking of cigarette smoke and night market food, with unstable floors and low ceilings, and the kind of toilet that served more as a tableau for graffiti and band sticker art than a place of hygiene.

The original idea for Revolver was to capture the spirit of Underworld, its rebellious attitude and live rock vibe, but marry it with the cozy ambience of a nice British pub (the owners used the Prince Albert in Brighton, England, was an early inspiration, with its similar first-story bar, second-story live room configuration and its busy, kitschy aesthetic).

Although it couldn’t match the organic cool that Underworld had built through the years, from the beginning, Revolver was welcomed for what it brought to the Taipei scene: another stage for bands to play on, better equipment, the option of both cheap and nice drinks, good vibes, even multiple toilets! But there were asterisks to its initial appeal: was it just a “foreigner bar”? Would it devolve into a skeezy meat market? Was it trying a little too hard, with its double pistol logo, its Mick Jagger Wall and its backline of fancy Marshall amplifiers? 

A similar accusation, of trying a little too hard, of being a tad too slick, of not being quite as cool as its inspirations, could also be thrown at another product of the south of England—Coldplay. 

🌈 and Other Assorted Meh Songs

The band started off in the late 90s as part of the wave of post-Britpop bands aiming to take the place in the scene that Radiohead willingly vacated after The Bends and OK Computer. They were never as virtuosic as Muse, nor as charming as Elbow, nor as… erm, Scottish as Travis. They were not hip and arty, nor rough and decadent. They didn’t have working class bona fides or northern cultural cache. 

They always relied too much on Chris Martin for their appeal. On his looks, on his voice. Many of their early videos, much acclaimed, are literally just one-shots of Martin walking in slow motion for four-and-a-half minutes (see: Yellow, The Scientist). For a band that has stayed together in its original form for the better part of three decades and risen to the top of the musical mountain, it’s incredible how anonymous the other three members have remained.

And maybe that gets to the problem—the whole Chris Martin-ness of it all. There is something about him that grates many people. An earnestness. A need to please. A golden retriever blandness. When Thom Yorke sings an entire verse and chorus in his high register, he sounds like he’s made of blown glass and might shatter into a million pieces with every vibrato cycle. When Chris Martin sings in his high register, he sounds like a guy in a college dorm room trying to get in your pants. 

Martin also lacks an edge that other British frontmen from the nineties era had. Even bands who were ostensibly as poppy and commercial as Coldplay (e.g. Pulp, The Verve), still had some cache due to the attitude of their singers. Martin was never cool and tortured, nor hip and sardonic. He was too sensitive, too middle class, too American-coded. He married into Hollywood royalty, named his kid Apple, and became memefied. There was never any chance of him getting into beef with the Gallaghers or descending into lurid decadence.

Everyone you ask who’s been around long enough can tell you the same thing about the band: “yeah, their first two albums were a bit alright, but I stopped paying attention after that”. And yet, Coldplay have released eight more since then. Every one of those has had a Top 40 single. They have sold 100 million albums, won 7 Grammys, 9 Brit awards (though, tellingly, never the more prestigious Mercury Prize). They have headlined Glastonbury Festival a record 5 times and continue doing billion-dollar stadium world tours. 

They are also the most streamed band of their generation, and essentially the only band left that can compete with solo pop artists in the Spotify era. They were even presented with the 21st Century Members Club Jacket of Megastardom—a Superbowl halftime show performance (though they were soundly outshined by their guest singer, a true pop supernova, Beyoncé).

The two obvious career analogues are U2 and REM. All three are bands formed by four white teenage boys studying in the same college, who managed to maintain the lineup intact for their entire careers, with the quintessential rock n’ roll formation—vocals, guitar, bass and drums. All three groups are also heavily defined in the popular consciousness by their lead singers, representing three completely different models of frontman; from the sensitive and introspective (Stipe) at one end, to the messianic and bombastic (Bono) at the other, with Chris Martin landing, limply, somewhere in the middle.

But both U2 and REM, no matter how high they rose and how popular they became, were at one point seen as alternative (you could say REM created the term), which Coldplay never were. In fact, they were always the polar opposite—as “mainstream” as rock ever came. And their career has seen that mainstream tapering down into a thin strip until it basically fits only them.

Going back and listening to their whole catalogue post-A Rush of Blood to the Head (i.e. past those first two albums that were “a bit alright”), I’m struck by their obvious, unhidden quest to forever remain popular and relevant. To their credit, their sound does evolve, and they manage to ride that evolution smoothly, trying out new things and testing out different gears, but never steering far from their lane. 

But every move seems inorganic and calculated. Artistic growth through market research. In every album, you can tell which other acts were popular at the time and “inspired” Coldplay’s songwriting. Their discography is like getting a chronological sampler of all the popular trends in band-driven pop through the 21st century. 

I listen to 2005’s X+Y and I can hear the post-punk revival of the early 2000s. I hear Interpol and  Franz Ferdinand, with funky bass lines and bouncy drum beats interwoven with the band’s signature midtempo piano chuggers. (I hear a lot of “Meet Me In the Bathroom”, except Coldplay is probably meeting there to admire the tiling and find out who did the tasty interior design.)

In Viva La Vida, the sound gets more maximalist and bombastic. There’s the theatricality of Arcade Fire to go with the predictable turn towards U2 stadium-rock. Brian Eno comes into the tent because of course he does. Was Daniel Lanois not answering his phone? 

Through Milo Xyloto and Ghost Stories, the move to full festival act becomes complete: lots of four-to-the-floor kick patterns, simpler melodic motifs, pumping rhythms, more repetition. Every album cover from this point looks shot out of a glitter cannon. Variation comes mostly through looping textures and swooping dynamics, with a little Bon Iver-inspired vocal weirdness for sparkle.

Eventually, it all becomes pure pop confection, with Max Martin at the helm and a full embrace of naked synergistic collaboration. BTS, Selena Gomez, and Jacob Collier all show up to juke the stats on 2021’s Music of the Spheres, probably after seeing the numbers of the Chainsmokers collab in 2017.

So by the time we get to 2024’s Moon Music, songs are named after emojis and express sentiments that would feel cloying and underbaked if sung by a tween starlet, let alone four grown men pushing fifty: 

I know, la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Still, I don't let go

And fields of flowers grow

Oh, it feels like I'm fallin' in love 

Maybe for the first time  

Baby, it's my mind you blow

What We Talk About When We Talk About Hate

Coming back to the original question: what is it about Revolver’s “No Coldplay” sign? What makes it work so well? Why do we unconsciously understand it? What is it signifying? 

Is it just saying, “we, Revolver, are a rock bar—and by rock we mean real rock”? Not something that looks like rock and carries the markers of rock to an untrained eye—four young-ish people on a stage; bass, guitar, drums, 4/4 back beats; repeated four-chord progressions—but lacks the soul of rock, the authenticity of rock, the balls of rock; the weirdness, dirt, sweat, and blood of rock. 

Not the Coldplay version of rock. Or, as Jeremy Gray, one of the founders of the pub, described it when I asked him about it: “effects pedal fuckin’ wank with no bollocks”. 

This obsession with authenticity is a very nineties/Gen X attitude, and Coldplay are one of the last bands that emerged at a point where Gen X attitudes were still dominant in music. The idea of alternative rock was predicated on a rejection of the artifice and commodification of mainstream music and an embrace of experimentation and personal expression. But, again, Coldplay was never alternative rock. Never really indie. Even if they looked and (sort of) sounded like it for a while.

There is, as with everything in British social and cultural life, a class component to consider as well. Rock music in the UK, for the most part, either came in an overtly working-class guise or it was consciously arty and cerebral. It was The Sex Pistols, or it was Gang of Four. It was Oasis, or it was Blur. 

Coldplay never fit into either of those categories, but they (and Martin in particular) definitely came off privileged, inoffensive and middle-class, which immediately made them an easy target. And they took on, almost from their inception, a not-so-coveted role—the popular, successful artist that is acceptable for everyone to shit on. 

And shat on, regularly and profusely, they have been and continue to be. 

For the past twenty years, there have been countless variations of the same kind of “Why X Hate(s) Coldplay” article. Some critics explain why they hate the band, some explain why others hate the band, some examine why we all hate them; then there are those who investigate their own hatred of the band, while some question if they do in fact hate the band. The latest entry in the genre came just last week, with a statistical debunking of the very idea that Coldplay are hated.

Andy Gill, former lead reviewer for The Independent, took the most invective and (I imagine) satisfying dump in his “Why I Hate Coldplay” feature upon the release of Viva La Vida in 2008. He spewed vitriol with gleeful abandon, calling the band’s music “bland”, “mawkish”, and “smug”, comparing it to “wilted lettuce”; dubbing Martin’s lyrics “self-pitying” and “disingenuous”, attacking the band’s followers as “the most cosseted, comfortable constituency of music fans the world has ever known”. Gill even targets the band’s name, saying it “evokes a glassy-eyed fish on a fishmonger's slab”.

As fun as a hatchet job like that can be to read, there’s something almost quaint about that kind of attack. It’s just not something you see a lot these days in the era of pop dominion and weaponised fanbases.

I was looking through The Independent’s music reviews over the past six months, which covered a range of material from new pop, to old rock, to whatever the emerging blend of hip hop and country is called. The vast majority of reviews were positive, in the 4- or 5- star range.

Only four reviews landed under 3 stars. There were 2-star pans for Katy Perry, Eminem and Flo. And the single 1-star review? What was the poor target of the solitary arrow of misfortune? Coldplay’s Moon Music.

But even then, the review is not nearly as scathing as Gill’s takedown 16 years prior. The author, Louis Chilton, mostly (and accurately) attacks the vapidity of the album’s lyrics, while still having some positive things to say about the music. Chilton even ends with what almost qualifies as an apology: “It’s hard to criticise Moon Music without sounding like a miserable cynic, given the album’s bald-faced ethos of goodwill and positivity”. 

The impression that you get from many of these reviewers is that, if you scratch them deep enough, they don’t actually hate the band’s music, but its ubiquity. The constant stream of mid-tempo piano driven anthems they’ve put out, the steady cycle of album releases, the Glastonbury spots, Martin’s cutesy Graham Norton appearances, the dreary careerism, which they appear to wrap in multi-coloured banners straight out of a corporate headquarters’ birthday lunch.

Gill even says at one point in his review that he doesn’t know anyone who listens to Coldplay. And of course he didn’t (he passed away in 2019). He was a cranky music critic being assigned that article 25 years into his career. What kind of Coldplay fans would he have come across in his everyday cranky music critic life?

But the band’s fans are definitely there, and, even if they may not be brave enough to admit it, I bet many of them show up regularly at Revolver. Because as much as that “No Coldplay” sign aimed to keep one particular type of person away, in reality, the venue has proved much more inclusive through the years.

In the shows I went to while in Taipei, I saw a wide range of acts: experimental bleep music by itinerant electronic musicians from multiple continents, melancholy acoustic singer-songwriters, a Japanese emo band in Pikachu hats with plush toys on their amp heads, a Taiwanese post-hardcore trio that was so loud they shook my soft tissue, a punk band from Mainland China with sing-along Chilean protest anthems. 

In its 14 years, Revolver could have taken the easy route, seeking to please the most people (à la Coldplay) while keeping costs down, focusing on serving drinks, bringing the odd DJ to play a few of the hits, and renting the upstairs space for occasional cultural events. But instead, it has persevered in fostering a broad community of independent musicians, giving them a stage to play, promotion for their gigs, and a place to connect. It is also one of the only venues in Taipei that doesn’t charge bands to play in some form.

Keeping that spirit alive, in itself, is a major triumph. And the venue is still going strong, soon to overtake its older cousin and inspiration, Underworld, for longevity. 

I started off this too-long post asking the (facetious) question of whether Revolver had become the Coldplay of Taipei venues. I was even thinking of using the question as the title of this post, knowing fully well Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

Because regardless of how long it’s been around and how well-oiled its machine has become, Revolver has stayed true to its roots and not tried to be anything it wasn’t. In a way, that “No Coldplay” sign, fourteen years later, rather than signifying a strict, overarching philosophy, is mostly just… a sign. Another odd little thing to look at and chuckle about in a bar full of those; as you order another drink, look around to see who you recognise, and get ready to head upstairs to check out what the next band’s all about.