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Chris Martin Finally Explains What “Mylo Xyloto” Actually Means

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Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 10/13/2011 at 2:11 PM News

The Popdust Files: coldplay, interviews, mylo xyloto

When Coldplay announced that their upcoming album (due October 24) would be called Mylo Xyloto, nobody, except Chris Martin and maaaaaybe the rest of the band, knew what it meant. Our wide-ranging guesses included cryptography, Scottish producers, xylophones and party games. One commenter suggested it was derived from Greek (it’d translate, apparently, roughly to “apple breakdown”), and you could’ve convinced us he was right. Turns out he wasn’t right. We weren’t right either. As Chris Martin told The New York Times, truth is more nonsensical than fiction:

“Music comes from a place we don’t know,” he said. “It sort of comes through the fingers and toes. So we came up with the idea of, what if you had musical digits, like xylo toes.” He shook his head, irritated that he gave up the secret so easily.

And what about “Mylo”?

“It’s just a great name,” he said. “For anything.”

Norton Juster would agree. While we’re still not entirely convinced Martin isn’t just trolling us–seriously, xylo toes?–he does offer other details on the album. Namely: that the album title is “un-Googleable” (which it isn’t; in fact, it’s the very definition of Googleable), that it’s Coldplay trying to make a clean break from their old music (arguable; we’d say not really), and that it may or may not be the band’s last album (our guess: not.)

At any rate, definitely go read the whole thing, if only to see how the Times worked the phrase “large and vocal hater contingent” into its copy. Or, y’know, to read about Coldplay and Chris Martin. Your call as to which is more enticing.