¡Viva La Coldplay!

Jumping the gun at the races, it’s looking like Coldplay is setting up to have another rush of blood to the head. The Brit boys have been manically publicizing their newest release,Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, and Friday the record hit stores across the pond.

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Jumping the gun at the races, it’s looking like Coldplay is setting up to have another rush of blood to the head. The Brit boys have been manically publicizing their newest release,Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, and Friday the record hit stores across the pond. Within a few hours of release, experts were predicting it to be the best and fastest selling album of the year in the UK, potentially ousting soul-queen Duffy’s Rockferry, which has moved 184,000 records. Viva is slated to slide into the No. 1 spot on the UK charts, despite the fact that records are traditionally released on Mondays in the region. The first week’s numbers will be in and published by this afternoon.

The Grammy-winning piano rock quartet has been pulling new tricks out of the bag to promote the record, and they’re obviously paying off. They revamped their website several months ago to look like their handwritten journals and gave out teasers such as in-studio video clips, pictures, lyrics, blogs and progress updates. Now at the brink of worldwide release, they’ve utilized MySpace, email blasts and online ads to promote the release. Probably most beneficial for the band, they traded a file of their single “Violet Hill” for an email address, which has enabled them to keep fans up to date on when the record drops in which country, tour presale information and new developments. Their MySpace page also has their entire new record streaming on it to get the full first listen.

As if those statements weren’t loud enough, Coldplay is doing three free concerts around the world (Madison Square Garden, Brixton Academy), and they just announced a third show in Barcelona, Spain. Fans have been able to enter to win a pair of golden tickets by joining the mailing list, and a few lucky winners will be flown from anywhere in the world to one of the shows and given the royal British treatment, courtesy of Chris Martin and crew.

With Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends having dropped already in the UK – and in the US tomorrow, June 17 – it looks like Coldplay has done well for themselves. Their worldwide tour embarks with the first of the free shows at Brixton on June 16 in London, followed by the Barcelona and MSG dates. These guys might have figured things out; or at least they’re doing something right.

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