Tune up: Mylo Xyloto

What does it all mean? Coldplay returned in late October with its fifth full-length album, the cryptically titled Mylo Xyloto. Inspired lyrically by old-school American graffiti—the street art, not the George Lucas hot-rod movie—and Treme mastermind David Simon’s award-winning series The Wire, the record showcases the band embracing intimate acoustics and head-bopping grooves more than the large-scale stadium-serenading anthems that filled 2008’s Grammy-gobbler Viva la Vida. Other than a few U2-on-a-New Wave-bender tangents, this is about as stripped and poppy as the most popular band on the planet can get, and it’ll be heard everywhere. While radio and TV are playing “Paradise,” dig deeper for two-chord stomper “Hurts Like Heaven” or the Brian Eno co-written “Up with the Birds.” coldplay.com