So I saw the Shins at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney last night. They were great, but that's not exactly what this thread is about. I thought during their set that "hey, these guys should be bigger than Coldplay"... and then I thought, hey, there was a time when Coldplay actually had a similar(ish) sound. Well, in one song, at least: Don't Panic.
So my theory is that Coldplay could have been quite awesomely Shins-like at one point, but then when Yellow blew up, they let their U2 obsessions run free, and everything was ruined forever, as the t-shirt says.
or to put it another way: The Shins are what Coldplay should have turned into, but didn't.
thoughts/ridicule?