Coldplay - Charlie Brown

Coldplay functioning at their best are good. Really damn good. And that's what Charlie Brown is all about - Coldplay acting up to their status as 'the world's biggest band', as their dramatic X Factor intro tape put it.

And if anything, it was that epic XF Final performance that crystallised what both the band and this song stand for - a rock band that have gone beyond any normal sense of mass popularity to a new division, a higher league of success.

In terms of bands of their generation, what Coldplay have gone on to achieve is pretty much without parallel. And that made the consistency and overall quality of new LP Mylo Xyloto all the more surprising - did a band of their advancing years have any right to make an album *this* good?

Charlie Brown pins everything around that massive, sky-piercing guitar hook - it really is a thing of sheer majesty. When the band released Viva La Vida, they unlocked the floodgates on an angelic sweeping collective of sounds that, while a move away from their former 'traditional' Britpop sounds, played perfectly into their position of the band that everyone (sometimes secretly) loves.

But with Charlie Brown, there is no secrecy needed, for a record this good, all that's required is appreciation. And if there's any moment on Mylo Xyloto that sums up the ecstasy and general sense of good-feeling that Coldplay can conjure up when operating at top-spec, it's Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown is released on the 10th January.