Judging from Chris Martin's recent statements to the BBC regarding Coldplay's new album, Viva La Vida, due out June 17, he's all about doing damage control on his band's shaky street cred. "I wanted it to be OK to be that 16-year-old who says they like Coldplay in the playground...hopefully with this record they won't get teased so much."

First off,  Martin seems to be a bit confused about where (let alone how) teenagers spend their time. And isn't it a bit late for the guy who named his kids Apple and Moses Bruce to be worrying about playground harassment?

That said, there's nothing at all wrong with the new album's single, "Violet Hill," which opens with some cool Brian Eno atmospherics and delivers more punch in the guitars and more heft in the vocals than usual. The real point Martin's missing, though, is that it was never really Coldplay's trademark Britpop-lite  sound that brought a backlash crashing down on them. By way of comparison, how much ragging on, say, Blue Merle, or even Travis, have you heard along the way? Rather, it's Coldplay's Starbucks-esque ubiquity that irks their detractors the most. And they can hire Lil Jon to crunk up their next album with jeep beats and Ying Yang Twins guest vocals if they want, but there's no stuffing that genie back in the bottle.