Radio in the UK is very different than in the US and many other countries. The BBC stations are still by far the most-listened to and there is not the vast choice of stations catering to every style. In the 90s, XFM was launched and was in many ways to the BBC what indie labels were to major record companies.

Coldplay had, of course, already appeared on Radio 1, but the experience of hearing your record on a radio station that you just happen to be listening to was clearly stunning enough that it needed to be marked down and noted.

In 2013, Coldplay were named by the Arqiva Awards as the PPL Most Played UK Artist On Commercial Radio. How times were to change…

It’s quite likely that the Tim mentioned in this note is Chris’s friend Tim Crompton. Tim gave the band the name Coldplay and is the frontman of The High Wire. It’s also worth mentioning that the fact they were sitting around listening to the radio at twenty to four in the morning does nothing to dispel the image of folks in bands keeping spectacularly odd hours…

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