In the radio announcer coaching part of this little enterprise my mantra is always; If you have to choose, always choose being clear over being clever. If only the members of Coldplay had heard me! The experience they’re having with their latest album title is a perfect illustration of what I mean. No one can pronounce the damn thing that appears to have been cooked up by a bunch of pampered rockers whose success put them out of touch with the average fan. Their music label must have had a behind-closed-doors fit when they found out the album would be called Mylo Xyloto. Even worse, the letters are all mushed together so it isn’t even obvious that they’re meant to make two words. Now they’re finding out it’s being mispronounced and misunderstood. You might say that’s a good thing because it’s drawing attention to it. Well, even leader Martin doesn’t think that’s so.
He told Good Morning America that they invented two new words and decided to use them to be different. “It’s just something that we thought looked really good but everywhere we go around the world people pronounce it in the most crazy ways and we’re beginning to regret it now.”
I’ve said it all along Chris and maybe your wife Gwyneth Paltrow agrees with me. Being clever is great but not at the expense of being understood. It’s my rule for radio and apparently you need to adopt it as an album-naming philosophy too!