… and good god, is it a letdown.
When hecklerspray first heard that the new Coldplay album ‘X & Y’ contained a secret code in the artwork, we couldn’t help but sit up and pay attention. Maybe, just maybe – for the first time in recorded history – Chris Martin and the boys had actually done something … well … interesting.
What could this coded message be, we wondered? Potential options reared up like big special rearing things. ‘Sorry For Being So Boring,‘ the riddle could read. ‘We Started Out As An Echo And The Bunnymen Tribute Band And Things Just Escalated.’ ‘I Hate Gwyneth And Can’t Help But Cheer At The End Of Seven.’ it could have added.
All of which would be about a billion-plus-infinity times more interesting than the truth. Ready for the startling revelation? Ready for the awe-inspiring shock? Strap yourself in. It’s going to be a wild ride …
Apparently the stacked blocks in the cover art are ‘graphical representations loosely based on a binary code known as ‘Baudot’, which generates a base5 binary representation for each letter or character in the western alphabet’.
Rock and Roll, eh? Woo and indeed Hoo. The party has officially started, kids! Chris Martin’s on the decks and – to hell with it – we may even be up until eleven tonight (assuming we get a ‘second wave’, otherwise 9:30 bedtime it is)!
In an even more knee-shakingly exciting development, it has been learnt that ‘to accomodate all the letters of the alphabet and numerals, two of the 32 combinations were used to select alternate character sets’.
Wow! hecklerspray can’t wait until it cuts it’s hair into a ‘Bloc Head’ (phone up the NME for a definition) and ventures down to the local ‘indie club’ to tell the guys! Imagine their faces when we also reveal that – according to a Coldplay fan who quite clearly has a rich and fulfilling social life – ‘on the album artwork the letter X is 10111 and Y is 10101 and the symbol for & has to be firstly activated with a sort of SHIFT character, which is 11011’.
Christ. Somebody had better tell the band to hold their horses: any more of this kind of behaviour, they’ll be inciting riots of youthful rebellion not since the early days of punk. ‘The General version of Baudot’s code has technically been amended,’ they’re bound to scream … a battle cry easily fit to replace anything that has ever passed, we’re sure you’ll agree.
What’s that? You don’t agree? You think that this is possibly the dullest attempt at a controversial rock and roll stunt in the annals of musical history?
Well, goddamn it. You’re right. How about that?
Stereoboard Opens The Maths Revision Book And Explains More
[story by C J Davies]