First of all, just for the record, I can see a case for rating this album as high as #5 on the list of the worst album titles ever. Seriously, who vetted that? Neither one of the halves of the title of Coldplay’s new album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends is particularly good, but putting them together with that oh-so-pretentious “or” makes for something that’s decidedly less than the sum of its parts, and the simple fact that it’s stolen from Frida Kahlo doesn’t make it right.
At any rate, this album marks the official moment where I don’t know what to make of Coldplay’s career. They haven’t always been popular on this particular site, but they were at one point a band I truly loved, a group who’d put out a very good EP (Brothers & Sisters) and full-length (Parachutes) of early-Radiohead-inspired guitar pop, and what’s still one of my favorite records of the ’00s (A Rush of Blood to the Head), which drowned enough melancholia to last a lifetime under so much reverb that it would have made The Edge blush. It was beautiful, it really was.
Then came X&Y, the 2005 album that was supposed to make them the biggest band on the planet, but didn’t, mostly because despite the presence of a couple of very good singles, it was an overproduced pile of sludge. It was the exact same thing as their previous albums except less so, the stale, sad sound of four guys realizing they’d already used all their ideas.
Which brings us to the aforementioned VLVODAAHF, a kitchen-sink attempt to reinvent themselves as an art-rock band, even to the point of bringing in Brian Eno to produce it. It’s got flashes where it’s excellent, but it doesn’t succeed as an album, because there’s a fine line between creative energy and desperation, a line that Coldplay continually edge over.
One of the biggest problems is the band’s continual use of “songs in sections,” pieces with at least two vastly different parts. It’s not an inherently bad idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, the modal violins in “Yes!” are brilliant, as are the slide guitar bits. But then it goes into a moment of stale stadium grandstanding that lasts for a minute and a half, and by the time it comes to a merciful end, it’s difficult to want to listen to it again. And I can’t even figure out why “Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love” is one track, especially since there’s no segue in between the two parts; it simply stops and then starts again, and the second half is vastly inferior to the first.
The things that do work are impressive. The organ that drives “Lost?” adds a delicious new wrinkle to their sound, and the tympani and sawing strings make “Viva la Vida” possibly the best moment on the album. But two great songs don’t make a great album (see X&Y), and there are at least as many bad ideas as good ones — like, to take another instance, starting the record with two and a half minutes of instrumental boredom with the terribly ironic title of “Life in Technicolor.”
I had high hopes for Coldplay. But at this point, I’m starting to be afraid that their career arc is going to be a match for Liz Phair’s.
Release date: June 17, 2008
Label: Capitol
Rating: 5/10
4 Comments »
really sam? you had high hopes for cold play at some point? hmm. i’ve always instinctively hated them, without being able to give a concrete reason why.
I JUST DO MK
but amber…brian eno. your biological father, right?
This album is good. Coldplay is like Christine Taylor’s character on the Seinfeld episode “The Van Buren Boys”. Jerry is totally into her, but everyone around him thinks she’s a loser for some reason. She’s hot and totally cool…the total package so to speak, but for some reason nobody else thinks so. Then she meets Jerry’s parents and they like her as much as Jerry does. That’s when he dumps her.
Not sure where exactly I was going with that, but it seems like nobody likes Coldplay because everyone likes Coldplay. I played the album in the presence of my (now AARP member) parents and even they liked it. Hell, even Joie likes it. I guess I just needed an excuse to talk about Seinfeld - not that there’s anything wrong with that…
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Comment by joiezabel — June 18, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
man, sam, you’re gonna be as shocked to hear this as i am to say it, but this new coldplay is growing on me like the proverbial fungus. especially the ‘reign of love’ part of ‘lovers in japan.’ can we still be friends?