Coldplay Playing Free Shows in London and New York

Coldplay will offer a free download of their new single, 'Violet Hill,' through their official website for one week starting Tuesday. The song -- which comes in advance of Coldplay's fourth studio album, 'Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends,' due June 17 -- will be released to conventional paid-for digital outlets on Tuesday, May 6.

Coldplay also has plans for two free shows in London and New York and will announce preliminary details of the gigs, which are slated for June at Brixton Academy on June 16, and Madison Square Garden on June 23. Details on how fans can win tickets to these shows will be revealed on Coldplay.com in the coming weeks.

In related news, the band has also revealed the disc's cover, which is a classic painting by French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix from 1830. Called 'Liberty Leading the People' (La Liberté Guidant Le People), the work depicts a woman exemplifying Liberty in the French Revolution by leading the army in its march over the dead while holding the French tricolor flag. See the cover art after the jump.