Coldplay Continues To Impress Me With Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends.

The Good: Good tunes, Decent lyrics, Good vocals
The Bad: SHORT, Derivative of itself/other Coldplay
The Basics: Surprisingly tight and original (borrowing more from earlier Coldplay than anyone else), Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is a worthwhile pop-rock album.


I know very little about the hype around the band Coldplay. I don't read anything about the group or its members and I only recognized the lead singer of the group in his appearance on the second season of Extras (reviewed here!) because of the explicit mention of Coldplay. I've enjoyed the music I have heard by Coldplay on the radio, though, and years ago I listened to and reviewed their album A Rush Of Blood To The Head (reviewed here!). Since then, though, I've not followed the band, though I would occasionally hear their songs on the radio. For about the last year one song of their in particular has caught my ear, "Vida La Vida," which is known to radio listeners from its refrain "That was when I ruled the world."

I have been listening to Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends pretty obsessively for the last few days, in no small part because whenever "Viva La Vida" plays, my partner has me replay it several times. The more I listen to the album, the more I appreciate that Coldplay is its own niche, but it is pretty well mired in that niche. Coldplay's music is distinctive to itself - i.e. the band generally does not sound like anyone else exactly - but it seems to largely repeat its own stuff. Outside the end of "Yes," which instrumentally sounds a lot like the chant that ends one of the radio-played songs by The Killers, the album sounds like Coldplay: mellow pop-rock with good lyrics that are sometimes presented in such a murky musical fashion that they may not be easily understood next to the instrumentals.

With only ten tracks occupying 45:49, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is distinctly the work of Coldplay. All of the songs are written by four of the five members of Coldplay (Phil Harvey apparently doesn't write) and Chris Martin provides the lead vocals on all of the songs. The band plays its own instruments, but no member of Coldplay was credited with producing, mixing or engineering, which seems odd considering how important production seems to be to the album.

Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is very much a Coldplay album. By that I mean that it is distinctly in the style of Coldplay. Songs feature Chris Martin's tenor voice, they often are creative using atypical instruments for pop-rock albums (like the prevalence of violins and an orchestral string sound on "Viva La Vida") and they cover a thematic range not limited to love and love lost like so many others working in the pop-rock field. The album is good, but it is unfortunately short, but it is cleverly designed to be played on continuous replay by the way the end of "Death And All His Friends" uses the same samples as "Life In Technicolor" so the songs meld together on replay.

Chris Martin sings quite well on Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends and with minimal aid by production elements. On "Violet Hill" he opens with something of a more mechanized sound to his voice, but largely his voice is clear. He goes a little higher than his usual tenor range with surprising frequency and he also adds a bit of emotion into his vocal presentations. For example, on "Violet Hill" when he goes from high to low with his singing, he sounds like he is exerting himself. On songs like "Death And All His Friends" the backing vocals essentially form a chorus that blends the men's voices. The sound is good and Coldplay has a masculine vocal sound without being abrasive or over-the-top in the emotionalism of the vocals. Martin closes the album beautifully with a mellow set of lines that blends nicely into the keyboards and strings that take over after the vocals end.

Instrumentally, Coldplay is Coldplay. The band is creative and has more of an orchestral rock sound than anything else. Not a guitar-bass-drums group, the band uses a lot of keyboards, strings and atypical instruments. Only "Violet Hill" prominently uses electric guitars and percussion only dominates on "Lost!" "Cemeteries Of London" uses a more stark piano sound before the whole band joins in. But most of the songs are like "Lost!" in that they do not sound like anything else on the radio. That song uses an organ, handclaps and pounding drums for a very murky musical sound that sounds epic and grand.

Lyrically, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is thematically dominated by songs about change and loss. "Lost!" is a nihilistic song that wonderfully portrays the sense of flailing through a darkened world with its instrumental accompaniment and its lyrics. When Martin sings "You might be a big fish / In a little pond /Doesn't mean you've won / 'Cause along may come / A bigger one / And you'll be lost! / Every river that you tried to cross / Every gun you ever held went off / Oh and I'm just waiting 'til the firing's stopped / Oh and I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off " ("Lost!") he sounds like Bono and anyone who likes mellow U2 will love that song. The sense of metaphor and imagery is distinct to Coldplay.

More often than not, Coldplay is lyrically Coldplay with its own little musical storysongs being bleated out to entertain themselves and their listeners. The sense of change is present in the song "Viva La Vida" with its lines "One minute I held the key / Next the walls were closed on me / And I discovered that my castles stand / Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand / I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing / Roman Cavalry choirs are singing / Be my mirror, my sword and shield / My missionaries in a foreign field." The diction and rhyme scheme is generally more complex than most popular rock artists producing radio hits these days.

In fact, only on "42" with the repetition of "Thought you might be a ghost / You didn't get to heaven but you made it close" does the band seem to be in a creative rut. "42" even sounds like the Coldplay song "In My Place." I suppose if one is stealing from themselves primarily that is not a bad thing. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is not a bad album.

The best track is "Viva La Vida" (though any "Best of" album that might come out in the future that lacks "Lost!" isn't a true "best of!") and the low point is the less memorable "Strawberry Swings."

For other music reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Playing The Angel - Depeche Mode
Get Behind Me Satan - The White Stripes
The Uninvited - The Uninvited

8/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Coldplay's X&Y Is Boring, Average, Light Pop-Rock: But It's VERY Coldplay!

The Good: A few decent songs, a few lyrics
The Bad: Duration, Nothing truly new from the band.
The Basics: A generally blase album, X&Y is very average music by Coldplay and it feels like we've already heard this album.


The last album I had before my arsenal of new music came in was X&Y by Coldplay. I have generally enjoyed Coldplay's music, whatwith recently catching Vida La Vida Or Death And All His Friends and one of my earliest reviews being A Rush Of Blood To The Head (reviewed here!). So, while I've often remarked on Coldplay being derivative of itself or other bands, I have generally enjoyed their work. But with X&Y, I found myself disappointed by just how obvious the entire album actually was.

In the case of X&Y, the only relevant frame of reference for describing the album is in the context of Coldplay itself. Coldplay produces heavily-produced light pop-rock and X&Y is an album that sounds virtually identical to their two earlier albums. The main problem with this album is not that it is not good, it is that it is not in any way new sounding. Instead, X&Y sounds like exactly what one expects when they think of Coldplay. The songs are generally bland ballads with Chris Martin's tenor voice a plaintive wail in front of the instrumental accompaniment. And the result is an album which is pretty boring.

With thirteen songs clocking out at 62:31, X&Y is very much the work of Coldplay. All of the songs are co-written by the members of the band and they play almost all of the instruments on the album. As well, Chris Martin provides all of the lead vocals. Finally, the group is credited as a co-producer on each of the tracks. In other words, it is hard to argue that this is anything other than the intended sound that Coldplay intended. What is truly astonishing is that this rather bland album was actually the best-selling album of 2005! I suppose there are enough Coldplay fans in the world to make this somewhat narcoleptic album a success, but in retrospect, it is average at best.

X&Y spawned the mainstream radio hit "Speed Of Sound" and the songs "Fix You" and "The Hardest Part" were apparently released as singles as well. But in the United States, "Speed Of Sound" was the only song to get mainstream traction and one suspects that X&Y did so well because those who loved A Rush Of Blood To The Head were eager for something, anything, new from Coldplay. But X&Y sounds pretty much like an extension of the prior album. To wit, the band's sound has not progressed. Coldplay is keyboard, guitar and drum-based with Martin's vocals produced to be up front.

But even so, there are bands whose albums use the same instruments and yet they never sound so alike (Fleetwood Mac is a great example). But X&Y is entirely familiar. As much as I love the song "Fix You," it sounds a lot like "The Scientist" in its instrumental accompaniment. Similarly, "White Shadows" and "Swallowed In The Sea" sound like other Coldplay works. X&Y more monolithic in its sound as well. This is an album that is much slower and ballad-based than other Coldplay albums. In fact, "Speed Of Sound" is arguably the only truly upbeat song on the album, so those tempted to buy X&Y based upon that radio hit are likely to feel like they are the victim of bait and switch. The rest of the album, including the bonus thirteenth track ("+") are slow, melodical and very white bread.

Part of what makes the album so bland is how homogenous the vocals are. Coldplay does what I tend to like on X&Y which is to produce the vocals so they may be heard. Instead of letting the synthesizers and guitars overwhelm the vocals, Coldplay makes sure the vocals are right upfront and Chris Martin sings all of the lyrics from the band clearly. The problem is, Martin is a tenor with a wonderfully melodic voice that actually manages to do a passable falsetto on songs like "Speed Of Sound," but he doesn't truly vary his sound. Instead, he has the same, direct, earnest delivery on every song. There is no emotional variance to the songs and as a result, they all come across as somewhat melodramatic romantic ballads, even when they are not. The songs about loss ("Swallowed In The Sea") tend to have the same emotional resonance and flavor as the songs about falling in love. As a result, X&Y has a monolithic sound because the vocals overwhelm music even when the instrumental accompaniment goes in a completely different direction.

This is not to say X&Y is without any merit on the lyrics. Some of the songs have surprisingly poetic and wonderful lyrics. Take, for example, "Fix You." This song actually works with Martin's plaintive vocals as it is a somewhat melodramatic and heartfelt song. Martin makes it work when he sings "And the tears come streaming down your face / When you lose something you can't replace / When you love someone, but it goes to waste / Could it be worse? / Lights will guide you home / And ignite your bones / And I will try to fix you" ("Fix You"). This might easily be one of the best Coldplay songs ever as there is an undertone of futility in both the lyrics and the vocals that make it truly heartwrenching.

In addition, Coldplay has a decent sense of imagery to many of their songs. On "Talk," they employ the lines "Are you lost or incomplete? / Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece? / Tell me how do you feel? / Well I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak / And they're talking it to me / So you take a picture of something you see / In the future where will I be? / You can climb a ladder up to the sun / Or a write a song nobody has sung" and the mixture of emotive statements (or questions) and poetic imagery is beautiful. Coldplay is distinct right now in that they try to be poetic and employ a sense of classic imagery to many of their songs. "Talk" works because it engages so many of the senses.

Unfortunately, "Talk" also hints at where Coldplay goes wrong lyrically on X&Y. X&Y has some Coldplay songs with stiflingly dull rhymes. When Martin sings "You cut me down a tree / And brought it back to me / And that's what made me see / Where I was going wrong . . . And I could write a song / A hundred miles long / Well, that's where I belong / And you belong with me" ("Swallowed In The Sea") it is hard not to cringe. The song uses terribly predictable rhymes and it holds up poorly over multiple listens.

Ultimately, X&Y is a very average Coldplay album and the best songs on it were released as singles, so they will undoubtedly be on an inevitable "Best Of" Coldplay. Even those who like what they hear from Coldplay on the radio can wait for that rather than spend on this album.

The best song is "Fix You," the low point is the unmemorable "Low."

For other, similar, groups, please check out my reviews of:
18 Singles - U2
“Some Might Say” (Single) – Oasis
Accelerate - R.E.M.

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Fine Line Between Creating A Distinctive Sound And Being Repetitive Blurs With A Rush Of Blood To The Head!

The Good: Nice vocals, Good instrumental accompaniment, Easy to listen to
The Bad: Very repetitive sound
The Basics: Listen to the radio, when you hear a Coldplay song, if you like it, you'll like this album.


A close friend of mine recently became obsessed with the music video to "The Scientist" and after a single viewing of the video, I could see why. The music was haunting and the images that accompanied it was disturbing in a slow, drunken, foreboding way. So, when we sat down and listened to A Rush of Blood To The Head, I was expecting pretty much the same.

And that's exactly what it delivered.

Coldplay's supposedly alternative album A Rush Of Blood To The Head is essentially the latest in rock/light rock. Just as once Steve Winwood was considered rock and pushing the envelope of music on the Top 40 stations, so too do I suspect Coldplay will end up: relegated to the Light Rock stations in ten years. But for now? Now, Coldplay is front and center.

Coldplay's sound is essentially light rock music that balances smooth male vocals evenly with piano, guitar and drums. Despite songs like the opener ("Politik") that attempts to have more of a loud, thrashing sound with the drums and bass strumming loudly over the imploring vocals, most of the songs on the album are like the slow, haunting begging of "The Scientist." Even "Politik" fits the mold of the Coldplay sound of being more melodic than shocking. This is music to be hypnotized by.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head is filled with songs that are yearning for something. "In My Place" is about a person begging to be found, begging for relevance. "The Scientist" is filled with ache for love to be requited. The radio-friendly "Clocks" may be seen as a search to try to understand the world.

The thing is, these songs sound good. In fact, all of the songs on the album sounds good. Individually, any of these tracks feel like they could be Top 40 hits. The problem is, they all sound alike. Not identical, mind you. For instance, the upbeat "God Put A Smile On Upon Your Face" (which I'm wondering why J.J. Abrams used for the sex scene in the second season of Alias - did he listen to the lyrics?!), sounds nothing like the fast paced but mournful "Daylight," save that the lead singer is clearly the same. But the up-tempo, yet muted drums and strings do have echoes of "Politik" in them and foreshadow the sound of the later track "A Whisper."

What makes tracks like "The Scientist" so wonderful is that Coldplay clearly has a decent sized vocabulary, so we aren't plagued by a predictable rhyme scheme on track after track, line after line. Instead, the level of diction is high and the album wears well time after time, assuming the listener is really a fan of the Coldplay sound. The lyrics are great, like the description of trying to negotiate a turbulent relationship, "I was just guessing / At numbers and figures / pulling the puzzles apart" ("The Scientist"). How else would you describe love? There aren't calculations, it's a mystery we investigate and turn over and dissect and it still remains mysterious on so many levels. Fortunately, the lead singer of the band has the ability to work his mouth around all sorts of words and sounds and blend them organically into the music.

Most of the songs have a weird folksy sound to them, like "Green Eyes" which is essentially acoustic, relying solely on the guitar to accompany the vocals until it opens up with a tambourine. The entire album sounds like a collection of U2's slower, intimate works. A Rush Of Blood To The Head is a collection of songs with decent insight into the human condition masquerading under a sleepy sound. "Warning Sign," for example, talks about "telling you in the loudest tones" without any change in its muted, harmonic sound.

The melodies of all of the songs on the album are beautiful and catchy, but they tend to blend together. I am still miffed by why this is called "alternative." Maybe because, unlike most popular music today, it's not crap. In that way, I suppose it is. It still sounds like light rock to me. The weakest track is almost-unending sounding "Warning Sign" and the best song is the eerie, beautiful and distinctive "The Scientist."

For other mellow rock albums, please visit my reviews of:
Painted Desert Serenade - Joshua Kadison
The Very Best Of Burt Bacharach - Burt Bacharach
Aladdin Sane - David Bowie

7.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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