I absolutely would defy anyone to listen to this song and then listen to Coldplay and say that the former directly "ripped off" the latter, so i don't feel that criticisms of unoriginality are fair at all, and good music is good music, regardless of who writes or performs it.
Good music should be considered good music regardless of who did it.
I never really thought Coldplay sounded anything like U2, though I know that they had a U2 poster in the studio as encouragement to push themselves when recording X&Y.
I think Coldplay sounds a lot more, not
uber-produced, but like a lot more of the song came in production than writing or performing.
The specific Coldplay-esque sound I hear in Winter is the canned strings in the opening, they have a particularly similar rhythm and melody to the strings in Viva la Vida.
Why the stigma against U2? Any thoughts?
Oh, plenty of reasons. Some people specifically dislike Bono, either because they think his humanitarian efforts are somehow not his business, because his stage presence and performance style are kind of in-your-face and weird, or because the combination of the two feels like he's demanding their attention for a cause they don't want to be bothered with.
Also, the "popular" rock music these days has a distinct sound that U2 doesn't come near. Personally, I think that's to their benefit; rock and roll has, for the most part, become really bland in the last few years.
Some would just say U2 is too old to bother trying to stay current, though that's less often a reason people dislike U2 and more a reason people give for why they're "not as good" as the mainstream.
And some people just didn't like the last album, the last two albums, the last four albums, etc.
My friends tease me a little for being so obsessed with U2, but one day one of them told me someone in their dorm was playing ATYCLB and it reminded him that U2 is actually good.
