I’m not dissing Coldplay, here. In fact, I consider myself a fan of theirs. I legally own all of their albums, I find myself enjoying their new iTunes commercial whenever I see it, and I can even recall certain moments of my life where a Coldplay song seemed to fit just right as a soundtrack. (College graduation was ‘The Scientist’, while a former heartache felt pathetically like ‘Fix You’)

But I really cannot help pointing out a conversation that I’m almost sure could have or did in fact happen. And if it didn’t, it sure as hell should have. It (maybe) happened while Coldplay and Brian Eno were in the mixing phase of the song. Maybe they thought the last 2 minutes of the song didn’t really work or needed to be slightly different to increase their originality:

Brian Eno: “I don’t know, fellas. The last 2 minutes of the song just aren’t working for me.”
Chris Martin: “Fuck-all they aren’t, I’m fucking Jesus Christ Martin.”
Drummer or Bassist (sorry, don’t know your names): “I’ve got it! What if we completely cut out Jesus’ main vocal track but leave in the heavily layered vocal reverb effects. You won’t be able to make out the words, but who cares, we’re approaching Radiohead status. We can fart into a microphone and we’ll still go platinum in a week.”
Chris Martin: “Brilliant idea. I saved the day again.”

The rest is history. And speaking of the iTunes commercial, there’s really nothing cooler than a drum stick that creates a magical blue light as you swing it.

Listen to ‘Yes’ here: stream | mp3

After showing it to several of my colleagues, we found ourselves in a heated discussion over whether or not Fred was putting on an act… a ruse… a counterfeit if you will.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that it was sincere, and this is now, in fact, the real life of a fallen Mr. Durst.  He’s strange, he’s scruffy, and he sure as hell looks like he hasn’t interacted with too many human beings in a while.  After all, most of us can probably agree that we would be forced to poke at least a little bit of fun at the man if we ever spotted him out in public.

Any opinions out there?  Is this the real Fred Durst?  Or an act put on as a very poor attempt at humor?  Decide.

“Mercury” by Bloc Party (28 seconds in)
“Shock The Monkey” by Peter Gabriel

Its particularly Shock’s main horn part I’m talking about here – you can notice the similarity at around 28 seconds into “Mercury”.  Who knows; this could be a completely deliberate sample.  Regardless, its worth pointing out.

Still not convinced?  Check out the video.  It’s filled with Monkeys.