I dunno about Muse, don't think they're any better than Muse these days. I'd certainly take the last three Coldplay albums over the last three Muse ones.

The last one was their worst, but the previous two had their moments. I don't think they've ever made a terrible album but they seem to have just genuinely lost their way as opposed to selling out and going all 'down with the kids' on us.

Every band that Coldplay used to be associates with (Oasis/Noel, Travis, U2, Radiohead, Muse, Embrace, Elbow, Doves, etc) are now all far superior to them. I didn't think they would rank so low on the alternative rock band scene, but here we are and they are just terrible compared to them all at the moment.

He's been with Gwyneth since 2002, don't really think that's got anything to do with it. The other things you mention though..

Up&Up... wow.

Coldplay may have some mediocre-to-bad stuff on the album (HFTW, Fun, AOO/XMTS, AD), but they really hit on something with Up&Up. The guitar solos towards the end are really something else, and that melody is purely British. Those guitar solos at the end are really something else, too, and the band is all present. I never quite understood why the song stopped at the end, then came back with that little bit, but it makes sense, now that I've listened to it enough, because it ties up the loose ends of the song that couldn't be tied up within the song itself. I know I've said this a few times in this thread, but I just had to restate it after just finishing up a listen of it.

The production is a sheer mess on it. The first part is boring but it picks up in the end. Again, nothing special. A good song but nothing great,id rank A Head Full Of Dreams Over It. Virtually every song on the album though feels tired and like it's been done a hundred times before to me.

I just found another cringe worthy video complete with screaming middle age women. What a mess of a band.

Quoting @wadfalkirk last year, if they got Stargate to work on this album, they might as well have gotten Dave Sardy. Will's drumming is non existent for the most part aside from muffled thumps and Noel's solo is drowned in the sound. Like you said it sounds like they've run out of bright ideas. Every track is lifeless, and has no energy to driving force behind them whatsoever. I'm trying to understand how did a band with a songwriter that wrote tunes like:

Trouble
Bigger Stronger
Brothers and Sisters
Everything's Not Lost 
Spies
Politik
In My Place
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Clocks
Daylight
Amsterdam
A Rush of Blood to the Head
Warning Sign 
Fix You
Gravity 
Square One 
Viva La Vida
Violet Hill
Cemeteries of London
Life In Technicolor 2
Strawberry Swing 
Lovers In Japan 
42
Yes

...And now, write songs like Amazing Day, X Marks the Spot, and Hymn for the Weekend. It makes absolutely no sense and you can tell something is off inside his psyche. These new batch of tunes are pisspoor compared to past endeavors. Not only has the album gotten mixed reviews among fans, but the sales show they haven't had a hit single nor album in the same vain of the previous records. Mr. Martin and co., the reason tracks like The Scientist, Yellow, Viva La Vida and Clocks continue to garner worldwide recognition and love by many is because they could very well be classics in a few decades. A Rush of Blood to the Head and Parachutes are timeless records, just like Definitely Maybe and WTSMG. People will be talking about them for years to come as they have since 2002. No one will be talking about A Head Full of Dreams. When you get someone like Tove Lo on your album, someone who probably will be musically irrelevant in several years, you've made a big mistake. Citing influences like Justin Bieber, who will be remembered for their bland pop and shameful celebrity acts rather than proper musical contributions, makes you seem insane after citing Radiohead as your influence years before. 

What Coldplay needs is to go back into the studio, and be restricted with certain materials for the album production. At least, create a song that cannot have:

Featuring other artists/celebrities
Heavy synth
Modern pop influences 

Yet have: 

A accomplished and well received producer (get Eno back!) 
More focus on art rock and creative avenues outside of generic bland pop influence
A more realistic portrayal of human emotion. Not everyone is happy and joyful all the time. 

Take several years if you have to. Dissapear into the dark like the Roses and make your "new" fans question if you're ever coming back as they'll probably move on to some fading pop group like 1D or 5SOS. Then reemerge better than ever with material that will shake the world. You guys can do it. 

Few things:

1) I agree with all of what was said here. I'd love for Coldplay to make another album with songs that have bone-chilling lyrics and instrumentation that backs that up well, like with 42 and Cemeteries of London, which leads me to...

2) Those two songs have such a great imagery to it, and I love the delivery Chris gives of the opening line, "Those who are dead, are not dead, they are just living in my head" is one of my favorite Coldplay moments for how haunting it is. It makes HFTW look like someone dancing on someone's grave. 

3) With all of those points mentioned, I'd argue that Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends will be regarded as a classic, alongside the other two you mentioned. That album is nothing short of great from front to back with how strong each song is, and how they all fall together really well with a strong central theme. 

4) Back to point 1), what Coldplay needs to do is pull a U2. In some ways, AHFOD is a lot like their Pop with all of the collaborations and wild ideas, but just without the substance and strength in songs that Pop has, and any hope for being a classic, like Pop does. Coldplay needs to go back-to-basics, get the acoustic drums back, take out the dance layers, get together with Eno, and gather ideas & material that can be fresh but a classic sound for the band that can also produce a good hit for the band to have their hopes affirmed in the back-to-basics idea, like U2 had with Beautiful Day. 

AHFOD is like Pop??

I think at this point Chris Martin would rather eat his testicles than write songs as crazy and daring as Discothèque, Do You Feel Loved, MOFO, Miami, Please, etc.

I just get similar vibes when I listen to songs from both of the albums. Albeit one is very deep and substantial (Pop), while the other is poppy and self-indulgent with some self-parodying overtones, but I also find some similarities in the track listing. The first track on both albums are very dance-infused, while the second tracks slightly follow suit but take on some more pop tendencies, the third tracks are the most different from the band's sound, the fourth tracks are closer to the respective band's respective sound, and the fifth tracks are a bit of a departure from the sound but are the most single-worthy songs on the album.

From there, the similarities end, period. Those songs you mentioned, plus If You Wear That Velvet Dress and Wake Up Dead Man, especially, are some fine works that were so batshit insane (but good) that it scared off the biggest (and best, arguably) band in the World to go back-to-basics, while some of the stuff on AHFOD would scare off anyone for how blandly penned and sellout-like it is. Very, big difference there.