Coldplay issue free single as download

Coldplay will release their new single for free as a download, along with two shows for which fans will pay nothing.

'Violet Hill' is the band’s first single from their new album 'Viva La Vida' or Death And All His Friends.

It is is being made available as a free download for one week from their website –www.coldplay.com, from tomorrow at 12.15pm.

At that time the single will be played for the first time on radio, a week ahead of its general digital release – a conventional paid-for release.

The website will also have preliminary details of two free shows that the band will play – one in London and one in New York.

The free shows are at London’s Brixton Academy on June 16 and New York’s Madison Square Garden on June 23.

Organisers stressed that fans should check coldplay.com for details of how to win tickets and not contact the venues as no tickets will be available to buy.

Meanwhile, the release of Coldplay’s new album has been brought forward four days in the UK, bringing it into line with global release dates.

The album, to be released on June 12, comprises 10 tracks produced by Brian Eno and Markus Dravs.

The announcement follows Radiohead’s invitation for fans to set their own price on its album 'In Rainbows' when it was released online last October.

According to one survey, three in five people paid nothing at all – and frontman Thom Yorke previously revealed he was among the thousands who paid nothing.

Last week saw Coldplay singer Chris Martin’s wife Gwyneth Paltrow step out as a sex symbol on the red carpet of her latest film Iron Man.

The mother-of-two stunned admiring onlookers in towering heels and a barely-there black dress in London’s Leicester Square.