X & Y is a big album in every sense of the word. The songs are huge. The music is sometimes quiet and intimate but at other times builds to a massive, layered sound that breaks new ground for Coldplay. The lyrics are about big subjects like life and death, love and loss, about being fascinated by the world around us but also about accepting that some things can never be fully understood. "In mathematics X and Y were always the answers, but in life no one knows," says frontman Chris Martin. "To me the album is about those unanswerable questions, and what you should do about the fact that you can't explain all the unknown variables.

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