The Concept Album as Visual—Sonic—Textual Spectacle: The Transmedial Storyworld of Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto

Abstract

In the context of the new millennial industry of popular music, rock bands and major pop stars rely heavily upon current technologies and social media platforms to develop elaborate promotional strategies, thus expanding the idea of the concept album to the concert tour, music videos, books, and a range of supplementary materials. Adopting the perspective that the meaning of a concept album emerges in and through a potentially complex network of materials, we can receive and understand concept album storytelling to operate according to multimedial, intermedial and transmedial contexts. This study examines the transmedial storyworld of Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto concept spectacle as it is developed in and through the material content of the original album, the Coldplay: Live 2012 concert film, as well as the paraphonographic materials that extend Mylo Xyloto into a variety of media.

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