Now it may look like a no-brainer.

But, earlier last year, before the release of Coldplay’s new and third CD. “X&Y,” Sean Ross of Edison Media Research, reported “I think their prospects this time out are really good.”

He ticked off the reasons:

~ They’ve become a core artist for alternative as well as one of those bands that bridges the two halves of the rock constituency.

~ Just as there are people who don’t like hard rock but still like System of a Down, there are hard rockers who like Coldplay.

~ In both cases, it’s because they’re a thinking person’s rock band.

Then that cerebral band went out and put a decided explanation point on that research, scoring the biggest opening week sales for a rock artist this year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Writer Ken Barnes suggested that those who have crowned Coldplay the next U2 may not be far off.

What’s going on here?

Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield: “They’ve done everything you hope to get done with a rock band. They’ve become a great touring attraction. They’ve had a high Grammy profile for two years now. Their audience has grown from album to album.”

Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland takes in all that information, pauses, and offers, laughing, “It’s a long way down.”

“We just try to be good at everything you have to be good at: touring and making records,” he says. “We love touring when we feel we have got something good to tour with.”

That’s obviously the case with “X&Y.”

“The artistic goals were kind of the same they have been in the past: to make a record with great tunes, great melodies and real emotion, but also with more interesting percussion and bigger sounding,” Buckland explains.

Where does it rank in the band’s body of work?

“Third,” Buckland replies, laughing again. “I don’t really think about them like that. They’re like photographs of when you are a certain age.”

Drummer Will Champion has noted a running theme through the album, a sense of duality, the idea that you can’t have light without dark, or yin without yang.

“We kind of searched and discovered a lot of things that work both ways,” Buckland explains.

Whichever way they go, passion and honesty remain ingredients that are at the foundation of the band. “It’s probably the most important parts,” he says. “We’re four friends trying to make the best music we can.”

Chris Martin told Rolling Stone, “There would be no Coldplay music without Jonny.”

Buckland sees his role as the excitable boy in the band. “I’m the one who kind of gets excited about all the ideas,” he says. “I’m the enthusiastic one. The others have the right to shoot you down,” he adds, laughing.

Motivation was a group experience in approaching the new CD. “We had to work out what it was. What it came down to was the four of us going to the rehearsal room with no one else around and just playing together,” he explains. “There is no other feeling like it. There are a few other good feelings (he laughs), but this is a particularly good one: the four of us in a room trying to write new music and it working out.”

He says that music is “my motivation for everything.” “I’ve got everything in my life because of it. All of our lives are linked together through it. Everything we have pretty much evolved through it somehow.”

Buckland is amazed at the journey so far.

“Absolutely. We feel like lottery winners,” he says. “It’s incredible for us. Just amazing that we can come to a city and play to thousands of people.”

Is it difficult to keep all of the attention and success in perspective?

“It’s very hard to keep anything in perspective,” he says. “When you’re on tour you’re left in a little bubble surrounded by friends and crew. You walk out on stage, see a load of people, then you walk off and into a hotel. When you’re home you’ve got friends around you that you’ve had a long time. They kind of ground you. Having the four of us in the band all kind of works to ground you. But it’s hard to know how grounded you are because you live inside a bubble.”

Being very good friends strengthens Coldplay, he suggests. “It helps a great deal. We kind of push each other as well,” he says.

Buckland says he is not sure what it means to be called “a thinking person’s rock band,” as they have been. “I don’t know really. Is it because we’re not Skid Row or something,” he asks, then breaks out in laughter.

Then he offers, “We’re called a thinking person’s band because we ask a lot of questions.” “Unfortunately,” he adds through more laughter, “We don’t have many answers.”

That’s part of artistic exploration, he agrees, pursuing those answers.

He says he is not certain why Coldplay’s music speaks to people. He hopes, though, that it works for them the same way it does for him with other groups. “I hope it works on every level. You like it at first, then you get into the lyrics, then you think they resonate with your life. Each time you listen to it, you get something new. That’s how I feel about music I like.”

Buckland wants people to be entertained, obviously, but also hopes it can provide a soundtrack for their lives. “That’s the way I remember summers, by the record I was listening to,” he recalls.

He insists the group does not worry about demographics with its music. “We really don’t think of anything like that. We think about it on an individual level. If you just want somebody to buy your album or to get them to listen to it, and think this is great, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they listen to.”

There’s no magic formula on how it all translates to the concert stage and back to the audience, he says. “You really just got to be into it. All you have to do is enjoy it and it kind of translates. That’s the most important thing. You don’t need to have fire coming out the end of the guitar (he laughs) or be dancing with white tigers. You’ve just got to be into it.

“It’s just great to be standing in front of a load of people playing our songs. And if it is enjoyable to other people as well, it sure makes a difference. Stony silence wouldn’t be as much fun. Crowd participation, singing along with your songs, is a great feeling.”

That’s more important, he implies, than being called “The next U2.”

“It’s a nice compliment, they’re a great band, but you are what you are, whether you are the next U2 or the next Beatles or the next Elvis, of if Elvis is the next Sinatra. You can’t take it too seriously.”

And as for Rolling Stone’s suggestion that they are “the nicest guys in rock?”

“I don’t know, I think Dave Grohl is nicer,” Buckland says through laughter.