Coldplay Complaint No. 2: Their songs are designed to be sung in unison by thousands of people holding lighters.

This is a little less easy to dissect because it has to do with the band’s overall sound. Coldplay will start with an elegant melody, then add a soaring guitar part and compound it with momentous percussion at the song’s crescendo followed by any combination of “ohs” and “ooos.” It then repeats that pattern several times until it has created the musical equivalent of a club sandwich that’s too tall to actually eat. This is also known as the U2 effect.

Valid or invalid complaint: Valid for me; invalid for U2 fans

Coldplay Complaint No. 3: I’ve heard this all before.

Every time I listen to a new Coldplay song, I experience a strange case of déjà vu. I’m almost positive that I already know the tune—or at least part of it. Parachutes-era Coldplay sounded a lot like Travis. Viva La Vida racked up a number of “U2-lite” remarks when it came out (for good reason). And on Mylo Xyloto, the opening of “Charlie Brown” keeps reminding me of Yeasayer while the lyric, “Took a car downtown where the lost boys meet” might as well be plucked directly from Arcade Fire. (Coincidentally, Markus Dravs, who co-produced Viva la Vida and Mylo Xyloto, also worked on Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible and The Suburbs.)