Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay

Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay's fifth album, arrived on Parlophone in October 2011, and it's the band's first concept record, a rock opera no less. Brian Eno was back in the fold after Viva la Vida, working alongside Markus Dravs and Rik Simpson, and Chris Martin on vocals and piano, Jonny Buckland on guitar, Guy Berryman on bass and Will Champion on drums went big, bright and electronic.

The story is comic-book dystopia: a planet called Silencia, a regime under Major Minus stamping out sound and colour, and a soldier named Mylo who falls in with Fly, a rebel whose sparks are the local version of graffiti. Champion boiled it down to love conquering all, and the music follows suit, with synth washes, stadium-sized choruses and wide-eyed uplift on "Paradise", "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall", "Charlie Brown" and "Hurts Like Heaven". Some critics found it bombastic; the public didn't care, sending it to number one in 34 countries and past 8 million copies worldwide.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.