Coldplay the “Biggest Band in the World”?

by Jamie Thingelstad on December 22, 2008

I was browsing through Last.fm’s “Best of 2008” coverage. There have been a number of blog posts and articles about the best new music of 2008, and I’ve found some great stuff reading these. Last.fm’s “Best of” is interesting since it is based on analysis and ranking of all the ‘scrobbled‘ songs that they track for users. I wasn’t that surprised to find that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was the #1 album of 2008. It was played by 1,907,044 users a total of 12,584,691 times. On top of all that, it didn’t come out until late in the year!

I was surprised by this comment in the excerpt though.

It’s probably not a stretch to say that Coldplay are the biggest band in the world today.

Now, I’ve always understood that the title of “biggest band in the world” was solely, and strongly, held by U2. So, I figured I’d check out some numbers.

The first place to look is Facebook. Facebook has pages for bands (and anything else) so I checked out the Coldplay page and the U2 page. Drumroll…

Coldplay: 1,175,125

U2: 335,374

How about Last.fm weekly charts. The most recent week’s data ended on Sunday, December 21 2008.

Coldplay: 116,299

U2: 50,867

Maybe Coldplay is the “biggest band in the world”. It also seems this isn’t a new debate at all. It has been debated for 3 1/2 years, U2 vs Coldplay in May 2005.

Tagged as: Coldplay, Facebook, Last.fm, Scrobble, U2, Viva La Vida

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Navid January 14, 2009 at 4:30 pm: Well, to start with, let me just tell that I had the same thought as you when I was a massive U2 fan (I still am). But then Coldplay came along about 11 years ago and blew everyone away. No other band (since U2) has achieved as much as Coldplay have in the recent years and their music is simply astonishing. I personally think Coldplay should not be compared to U2 at all because of the way they differ in every sense. If I was gonna compare them to some other band, Pink Floyd would probably be my choice. But in the past 4 to 5 years I have to say Coldplay have been my top favourite band. I was obsessed with U2 so I think you might agree that not any band would and could make me like them so much that put them in front of U2, other than, obviously, Coldplay. Now its got to a point where I cant live for one day without listening to them!!! At this moment and time, Coldplay ARE the biggest band in the world. Whether people like it or not! And as you said it yourself, this has been the case for the past three years. We have to remind ourselves that bands come and go, even the greatest of them. There was a time when U2 conquered the world with their sound and even people in middle of no where knew them; but that time is gone. Don’t get me wrong, im not suggesting that they aren’t as big anymore, im saying this is not 1980’s anymore. Now its Coldplay who are “ruling the world”! And now, with U2’s new album coming out soon, they are going to be a potential threat to Coldplay, but they have to be over the top good to knock Coldplay down! Coldplay are nominated for a resounding 7 Grammys this year!!! Even if they win only 4 or 5 of them, they’ll be becoming even bigger than what they are now!
I find it really amusing because im undoubtedly one of the few people who actually like both U2 and Coldplay. To sum up, people underestimated Coldplay badly, and that’s why everyone who said they were crap and they’ll never make it big, have all gone dead quite now. Because they now it. They know Coldplay ARE the biggest band on the planet right now! I never thought one day there would come a band who are better and bigger than U2. But that time came, and it was November 1999!!

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the edge April 4, 2009 at 2:48 pm: rubbish, look at the concert attendences and album sales

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