I think I've watched video on this subject so the idea is not all mine. I think it was Rick Beato.
Coldplay and acts like such won't get critical acclaim with a new Viva La Vida and they probably realized that. It might sound pretentious, boring etc. Another Viva La Vida will probably not fill stadiums across the globe. Between taking risks for critical acclaim and achiving commercial success with less effort, it seems clearly they went for the second one.
Edit: let me add that I don't think at all that commercial success is bad and failure is good. Artists winning their money is what allows them to be professionals and therefore work professionaly with music. But it's also known that the balance between commercial success, quality and critical acclaim is harsh

It could as well be a rethorical question. I genuinely cannot think of one that meet the 3 criterias (critical acclaim, commercial success and little external interference) in the past 5 years or so. In my case it doesn't really help that I went through really some bad times and lost all interest I used to have in music, but I've done my best to keep up with the new things.
There are things I like from the past years but they are not commercially successful in the fashion of Coldplay and such. The thing is that it seems like it gets harder and harder to achieve the three and I tend to believe that it tells us more about the musical market than artists themselves

Much like Oasis 2000-2008, it’s not about debuting high, it’s about hanging around for months and months and months. I’d expect a sharp decline moving forward now that the day 1 physical sales are gone.

It was to be expected that Everyday Life would not be a big seller. They weren’t gonna tour it. The band promoted it as a “smaller” album……and then Covid came rolling in altering the world for a 21+ month period. That album was a small brief glimpse of the old Coldplay and what they can do when they band together. It’s not perfect, far from it actually, but it has spirit. It has a purpose.

Music of the Spheres feels almost like a panic move after Everyday Life and the pandemic. I know it was already pre planned but it’s by far their worst album and I didn’t think anything would steal the crown from AHFOD. Moon Music feels so much more completed and well rounded. It still has the same flaws as its older brother (over produced, band members being MIA, generic lyrics) but it sounds like a solid thread from A to Z.

Interesting point. Whenever I ask people what song they think Coldplay will be remembered for, it always comes down to Yellow, Fix You and Viva. I’ll go with Yellow.

Don't Believe the Truth had The Importance of Being Idle after all...

The so called “final” Coldplay single of their career, has charted at #43 in the UK and did not chart in America. We Pray did at #87. What a whimper. I didn’t think it was ever going to go down as one of their true masterpieces regardless of what Chris says.

Regardless of my feelings on the album itself, what Coldplay are achieving right now is fucking ridiculous.

They are outstreaming Taylor Swift on Spotify in terms of monthly-listeners right now.

That won't last, of course, but it's hard to put into words how insane it is that an indie band from the late nineties who broke out among the likes of Athlete and Starsailor are out-performing the commercial juggernauts of the mid-2020's on the cutting-edge platforms so effortlessly. They're putting on the single biggest (highest-attended) music tour in human history right now. They've pushed their first-week sales back a decade to their 2010's pop-domination phase and they've done it all with a good reception from their new generation of teenage and younger fans which they've somehow managed to keep generating across the globe consistently for twenty-five fucking years. I was on a pop music forum the other day, and the people there were talking about Moon Music being the first Coldplay album they've ever come into contact with, and how much they enjoyed it. Think about that.

It's insane. Who else achieves things like this? Seriously, which other band has been this globally huge, this consistently, for this long? It can't be a long list. I know they're a generic outfit in many ways, I know they write for the most communally pleasing aesthetic they can find, but regardless, what they do is ridiculous. We know as Oasis fans how hard it is to keep up the relevancy of a hot streak early in your career. To be here after a quarter of a century still being so relevant is a huge achievement.

It's a very small club of bands who can achieve that, but Coldplay is sat right there.

And they're doing it all eco-friendly, and I'm proud of them. Well done, polite middle-class boys.

Regardless of its flaws, the new album continues to grow on me. I just find it impossible to dislike. Like a puppy that isn't toilet trained, its overall endearing nature helps you to overcome its flaws. It's a 7/10 album and its overall mood is infectious to me. I can't explain it more than that, but for me there's a sincerity to the music that is lacking on their two other major album releases from the last ten years.

Being a Tame Impala fan is super frustrating. Kevin is just pulled in so many directions as a producer and noodles endlessly in the studio. It’s gonna be another 5 years gap before the next LP arrives. 2 albums in 10 years and counting. I’d like to see a sonic jump again. Slow Rush was more of a lateral movement compared to Currents. The first 3 albums each made significant strides. I’d like to see more of those artistic developments.

What I said doesn’t mean Slow Rush wasn’t a good album. It was. My point is that each time tame dropped a record from 2010 to 2015, I heard something new. Something different. Slow Rush was the first time it felt more of the same. Shares loads of DNA with Currents which isn’t a bad thing but I wasn’t wowed for the first time. It happens. No artist is perfect.