I’m going to be honest, I’ve never had a moment when I’ve thought “Oooh I feel like going and listening to Coldplay”. They’ve struck me as boring and abnormally self-aware ever since Parachutes (which, I’m not going to lie, had a few good songs on it), and I’ve never understood how they’ve managed to sell out stadiums world-wide, when they come across as simply not that good.
The main thing that gets me with Coldplay is that they never seem to want to develop, which in my opinion every good band should always be doing. Release enough of the same material and people will eventually lose interest. Just look at the Village People.
However, I’d heard that their new album “Vida La Vida (Or Death And All His Friends)” was taking efforts to change that. According to the band they’d be incorporating Latin influences into the album, which they’d picked up along the way on their world travels. Though I was a bit skeptical when I read an interview with Chris Martin where he knocked back rumours that they were going for an “experimental” direction.
Due for a pyhsical release next tuesday, the album got leaked a week ago. So in an effort to understand the manic hype surrounding the album, which supposedly is single-handedly going to save EMI, I downloaded it (Ha!) and since then have listened to it eight times.
After first listens, there does seem to be an attempt made to widen their scope. Some church organ and handclaps on “Lost!”, some different song structures instead of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/chorus, and the use of a string section throughout stand out. Then, halfway through “Lovers In Japan/Reign In Love” everything stops and the second song starts, still on the same track, for no obvious reason. This happens twice again during the album and comes across to me as simply tasteless, self-indulgent and borderline offensive. It’s the sound of a band screaming “Look at us! We’re being different!”
And I can’t get through talking about this album without talking about “42″, which contains possibly some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard. “Those who are dead/are not dead/they’re just living in my head” Martin croons. Now come on, I wrote better lyrics than that when I was 16. And I was the drummer. A minute and a half in, “42″ switches over to a quick bass-led part which could be anything from “Pablo Honey”. Then there’s the single “Violet Hill” (which has an annoyingly cliched self-aware video) then at the end, “Death and All His Friends”, which I’m guessing is the one people get their lighters (or phones) out at during their upcoming world tour. Then it goes full-circle and we hear the same sound we heard right at the beginning of the album, on “Life In Technicolour”.
In the end, though, it’s just not different enough. You can tell they’re trying, but it’s not enough.
For a man who’s walked out of interviews after journalists have questioned his bands creativity, Martin simply doesn’t seem that creative. I’m not trying to slag them off, but adding some strings and sticking two songs together and calling it one doesn’t exactly raise the bar in original creative output. Even the “Banksy On a Bad Day” cover art seems a bit forced.
While we’re on the subject of creativity, seeing as this is claimed to be their “creative” album, consider Radiohead, a band that Coldplay get compared to time and time again (which is beyond all my level of understanding). At this stage in their career, 7 years after their debut, Radiohead had already released “OK Computer” and were onto “Kid A”. Fair enough, Coldplay aren’t Radiohead, but if they’re not, stop comparing the two.
Martin recently said in an interview that they’d got to a point where they couldn’t get any bigger, so they had to get better. But I’m coming away with the feeling that if this is ”better”, they’re never going to be the band they want to be.
I know they’re played in supermarkets. I know everyone’s dad listens to them (-well, mine does). They’re a mainstream band, and they’re not going to come out and release a Sonic Youth-esque wall of feedback album. They know what makes money, and they know they’re going to make a killing off this album’s release regardless. They’ve got the fans. But if you’re claiming to be doing “something different” for this album, you’ve got to do more than hire Brian Eno and nick the drums and guitar from “Keep the Car Running” on “Lovers in Japan”. (Go on, listen to them both, it’s blatant.)
Fair play to them, they are trying hard. But it’s not exactly the career-expanding movement that the music media is bracing everyone to expect.
last song i heard – “Yes” – Coldplay
